Regular City Council Meeting

Good evening, everyone. A quorum of the City Council being present. I wanted to call tonight's April 27th regular meeting of the Cambridge City Council to order. The first order of business is a roll call of the members present, please.

Simmonds, absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Present. Present. Councilor Zusy? Present. Mayor Siddiqui? Present. You have six members recorded as present and three recorded as absent.

For the rules, please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance and pause for a moment of silence. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, liberty and justice for all. For Chapter 2 of the Acts of 2025, adopted by Massachusetts General Court and approved by the Governor, the City is authorized to use remote participation at meetings of the Cambridge City Council. In addition to having members of the Council participate remotely, we've set up Zoom teleconference for public comment. You can also view this meeting via the city's open meeting portal or on the city's cable channel 22. To speak during public comment, you must sign up at www.cambridgema.gov. You can also email written comments for the record to the city clerk at cityclerk at cambridgema.gov.

We welcome your participation and you can sign up until 6 p.m. Please note that the City of Cambridge audio and video records this meeting and makes it available to the public for future viewing. In addition, third parties may also be audio and video recording this meeting. Public comment may be made in accordance with Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 30, Section 20G and City Council Rules 23D and Rule 37. Once you've finished speaking the next speaker will be called. Individuals are not permitted to allocate the remainder of their time to other speakers. I ask that you state your name and address for the record and the item on the agenda that you're speaking on. We have 93 speakers who have signed up. Each speaker will have one minute. We'll go ahead to public comment.

Councilor Flaherty? Present. Present.

Our first speaker is Melanie Abrams, followed by Annie Barnett, then Jeffrey Oishi. Melanie, you have one minute, please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Melanie Abrams. I'm at 10 Agassiz Street, number 12A, and I'm speaking in support of leaving Garden Street as is while we work on surrounding traffic improvements for Charter Right number one today. I rely on this for my physical safety. It would be really unsafe to have alternating direction lanes of car traffic and the same is equally true with bike lanes. In addition, you're going to have cars trying to turn into the bike lanes because they look Thank you so much for joining us. Signage would help but on the other hand the concerns of drivers who want traffic to be improved are valid and I believe we can really get out of a zero-sum situation make things better. for everyone while also being safer and avoiding rebound effects that defeat the purpose of the changes. So thank you.

Please keep it as is for now.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Annie Barnett. Annie, you have one minute.

Hi, I'm Annie Barnett. I'm also at 10 Agassiz Street. I'm speaking on the Charter Order No. 1 about the Garden Street redesign. in favor of reevaluating the proposed two-way design in order to keep the safety improvements for both cyclists and pedestrians, I believe, will be safer without this redesign or with a different redesign. And in order to ensure that also parking is still kept for nearby homes and people who live along Garden Street or the neighboring streets, and that, for example, delivery people won't be parking in the bike lanes and whatnot because A two-way bike lane might be easily mistakable and that I believe that, yeah, we can figure out a better solution with more thought and consideration.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jeffrey Oishi, followed by Julie Engelfinger, then Jasmine Gothelf. Jeffrey, one minute. Jeffrey, can you turn on the mic, please? Just hit the button. You'll see a green light turn on.

My name is Jeff Oishi. I live at 45 Cogswell Avenue in North Cambridge. I'm here to testify in favor of keeping the one-way design on Garden Street. As a cyclist, as a pedestrian, and as a motorist, I feel that this is an extremely positive change to the infrastructure around that neighborhood, which I spend a lot of time in. And I think to remove it now would be the height of municipal folly. The money spent changing the street back would be much better spent on safety improvements elsewhere in the city. Thank you.

I think your next speaker is Julie Engelfinger. Julie, you have one minute.

Hello, I'm Julie Engelfinger at Three Gray Gardens West, Corner of Garden and Three Gray Gardens West. I'm speaking on... Charter Item Number 202676. and I've lived at this address for 51 years and prior to the one-way two-lane street there were two lanes and it's only 29 feet across Garden Street where I live. If it's returned to two lanes with traffic in both directions and bike lanes, the state of Massachusetts says that this should be 32 to 34 feet across, for starters. Before things changed, there were frequently close calls and noisy accidents where I live.

I think it should stay the way it is now. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Jasmine Gothelf. Jasmine, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi. Can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

Great. I'm also speaking about Garden Street, and I am in support of keeping it the way it is. When the change was made, it was amazing. More parking on Garden Street, the ease of driving instead of the mess that was there before, and the safety that we have felt as a family is so much... Thank you so much for joining us. that much safer. And the idea of spending $250,000 of our taxpayer funds is unacceptable to me. And in addition, it has encouraged me to bike more and to be able to bike around there in a way that feels safe. So please leave it the way that it is. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Emily Jacobson followed by A.J. Sonalkar. Emily, you have one minute. Emily, if you can unmute yourself, you have the floor. One minute.

Hi, my name is Emily Jacobson, and I would just like to say I'm not a resident of Cambridge, but what you guys are considering tonight and the The impact of whether or not Cambridge decides to put the safety of cyclists and pedestrians first in its opinions has fall-on effects elsewhere in the region. I'm currently fighting for a protected bike lane in my community. and the wavering of Cambridge or the perceived wavering of Cambridge on this item was brought up as a way to say that we shouldn't even install that bike ramp in my community. And so I really hope that the council forges ahead with putting the safety of cyclists and pedestrians first. I've used this bike lane a lot of times. It's safe the way it is. I hope you keep it that way. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Ajay Sonalkar followed by Pamela Thaumur. Ajay? Ajay has not joined. We will go to Pamela Thaumur.

Hi, I'm here for charter item number one.

Pamela, if you can speak directly into the microphone, please.

I'm sorry?

Speak into the mic.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm next in line.

Sorry, if you can just pull up the mic. Well, we're helping you. It's okay.

Do I get my five minutes back?

Yes, you have one minute.

Okay, thank you.

We'll restart it.

Okay, honorable chair, honorable counselors, my name is Pam Tamura, residing at 52 Garden Street. I was born and raised in the show-me state of Missouri. Two words, slow and respect. Speed and stress are great friends. Hilda, my second cousin, lived to 98. I attribute her longevity to two factors. Her mother told her never to store any food in plastic, and she didn't, and she ate slowly. To date, I'm deeply disappointed in the majority's position to not only disregard but sadly disrespect for our neighbors, disabled, parents taking their children to preschool, and seniors. Now our Chicago-born, Peruvian-bred Pope Leo calls us to respect all. Or in the St. James Version of Scripture at Mark 12, 31, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. So two words, slow and show, as Aretha belted out, R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Keep guarding one way. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Louise Venden, followed by Laura Thorne-Kincaid. Louise? Louise? Louise, if you can unmute yourself, you have the floor.

Hello?

Yes, we can hear you.

Please go ahead. First of all, thank you Mayor Siddiqui and Councilor Suzuki and We all know neighbors who have left Cambridge because they cannot find housing that fits their income nor their family needs. Shortage of housing has grown in response Cambridge has passed several zoning changes since 2020 to remove barriers and incentivize the market to build more housing. Housing development has grown and the pipeline has increased dramatically. But are these proposed housing projects meeting our goals and more importantly, meeting the needs of our residents? Cambridge is home to world-class researchers, yet Cambridge policymakers embarked on zoning changes and stripped levels of review without a complete understanding of the market dynamics. I urge you to approve Policy Order 82

that request the housing needs study so that your future decisions will be based on

Thank you, Louise. Apologies, your time has expired. Please email the remainder. Our next speaker is Laura Thorne-Kincaid, followed by Andrew Geng, then Michael Rogove. For those waiting, we are at speaker number 11, Laura Thorne Kincaid. You have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. I'm Laura Thorne Kincaid. I live at 31 Stone Avenue in Somerville, and I'm speaking in support of leaving Garden Street one way as it currently is. I'm a PhD student at Harvard University and I and my co-workers and fellow students frequently use the street for our commute for biking and walking and we would like to keep the street one way for the physical safety of everyone using the street. and also to avoid wasting funds on doing a project that has already had a positive change.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Andrew Gang, followed by Michael Rogove, then Alex Dickle. Andrew, one minute.

All right, thank you and good evening. My name is Andrew Gung of Francis Place. I'm here to speak in support of Charter Right item number one to halt the reconfiguration of Garden Street. Plainly, I like Garden Street the way it is now. The bike lanes being spaced apart from the car traffic make it feel a lot safer Thank you. much easier when driving too. It's effectively now a bike highway that my friends who live here in Central Square used to visit me in North Cambridge and vice versa. I really hope that's something we can keep I do have a lot of sympathy for the folks on Raymond Street who have complained about dangerous traffic for a long time to no avail and I think there's now some proposals on the table and we should direct our attention to those instead of wasting more time on doing our progress pursuing something that the traffic studies have already told us would be worse. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Rogo, followed by Alex Dickel, then Andrea Carls.

Michael? Hi, all. Thank you. I'm Mike Rogo, 65 Spark Street. I'm in a butter, short walk from Garden Street. Which I drive, I walk, and I bike through. It's a favorite walking spot for my foster dogs. I'm speaking on behalf of those foster dogs, a one-year-old, a nine-year-old, someone in their 20s, a few in their 30s, 40s. and one grandparent in their late 60s who are all Cambridge residents and voters, some of whom have written to you already and all of whom have caretaking or work commitments preventing them from being here, nearly all of them. were surprised to hear we would be spending this money on returning traffic to two-way before getting the speed bumps we were promised on Sparks, as we've seen on Fayerweather, to great effect. on Field Street to great effect. To them, it speaks to priorities. I know you have a ton on your plate. I know you don't want to talk about this anymore, and we don't either, but it's going to be a long night. Please keep Garden Street one way and stay hydrated. I yield my time. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Alex Tickle, followed by Andrea Carls, then Perry Lubin.

My name is Alex Tickle. I have 141 Sterns, also speaking on Garden Street. This council chamber is not a courtroom, and to compare council decisions to relitigating a criminal case in which a lenient but final plea has been made is like comparing apples to oatmeal, not oranges. A city councilor is elected to two-year terms for a reason, unlike a judge for life, precisely so that the makeup of this council can change and accurately reflect the will of the people. A council willing to reverse past bad decisions is not demonstrating bad policy, nor is it voting to stop a project that the city's own experts are against. spending $250,000 to increase congestion is bad policy being elected and doing exactly what people don't want is bad policy As always, I look forward to having a voice in just 18 months in the next election because voting against a policy order for no reason other than an illogical comparison to trial law is not only disingenuous, that is bad policy and bad politics.

Our next speaker is Andrea Carls, followed by Perry Lubin, then Mark Boswell.

My name is Andrea Carls. I live at 52 Garden Street. I speak in support of Charter Right Number One. Please listen and hear me. We need some parking spaces and an unloading zone on our side of the street. That's the bottom line. Distant parking spaces and an across the street loading zone won't do. Put yourself in our shoes. Imagine you're returning with a heavy load of groceries and need to get The reality is that in a rush to be safe, you would pull into the bike lane to unload. So too would Ubers and Lyfts would pull over to pick you up or drop you off. Delivery trucks, etc., might move into that space. If your goal is to ensure bikers' safety and speed traffic, making Garden Street two ways for vehicles and bikers is definitely not the way to do it.

Please don't destroy the positive changes on Garden Street that so many residents and bikers have praised.

Our next speaker is Perry Lubin, followed by Mark Boswell, Ethan Frank, then Phyllis Simpkins. Perry?

Hi, I'm Perry Lubin. I live between Garden and Raymond on Grey Gardens, and I hope you'll vote to keep Garden Street as it is. Even with all the discussion of this topic over many, many years now, Thank you for joining us. Restoring the section of Garden Street from Linnean to Huron to two-way vehicles would reduce comfort and safety for people biking and walking and increase queues, gridlock, and congestion near Garden, Huron, and Sherman. So... From my point of view, a vote to keep Garden Street as it is is a vote to allow the best recommendation of the city's own transportation department to stand. And I think following the approach on this and future projects is the best way to

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Perry. Your time has expired. Our next speaker is Mark Boswell. Mark, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, councillors. My name is Mark Boswell. I live at 105 Walden Street in Cambridge. I'm speaking on charter right number one. I ask you tonight to please, please leave Garden Street as it is. It's one of my favorite streets in Cambridge due to its calm traffic. I was very impressed by the many commenters from two weeks ago who strongly prefer it in its current one-way configuration and that's not surprising. Seniors, parents with small children and many others Enjoy how it feels and functions as a calm neighborhood street today instead of a traffic-filled automotive thoroughfare. Keep in mind this is a direct and popular route for students cycling to Danahy Park for athletic events too. However, I fear the councilors are not fully considering the negative impacts of two-way configuration such as drastic parking removal and more importantly the signal changes that Huron Ave. Adding a two-lane bike lane will surely cause extra timing delays and create more congestion than we see today.

Please let's heed the recommendations of the Transportation Department and leave it as one way. Thanks.

Her next speaker is Ethan Frank, followed by Phyllis Simpkins, then Dana Bollister. Ethan, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, my name is Ethan. I live at 632 Mass Ave. I too was moved by the testimony from residents of Garden Street, some with mobility impairments, who find the current one-way setup Much safer for crossing the street. I also appreciated the transportation department clarifying that a two-way street would need an additional phase in the traffic signals. increasing queuing times at the intersection. So let's leave it as it is. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Phyllis Simpkins followed by Dana Bullister. Phyllis, one minute.

I'm Phyllis Simpkins. I live at 249 Huron. This is my fifth time here to support returning Gordon Street to two-way traffic. For those living on Gordon Street and those who want to keep it one way, I ask, why is Gordon Street more special than any of the other streets? All the rest of us are coping with increased traffic. But Gordon's seven blocks now have many fewer cars and underwhelming bike activity, particularly during the day. If your objection is cost, the city should have known the cars would just go elsewhere and planned differently. The city reports fewer cars registered in Cambridge My neighborhood has 30 unrestricted parking spaces filled by non-residents. They arrive before 8 a.m., leave after 5, take buses to the square, and proceed elsewhere. All the streets have children.

We have seniors. We have families. We all need to share the burden. Thank you.

Thank you. We have reached speaker number 20, Dana Bullister, followed by Rob Everts, Susan Reed, then Kathleen Capel. Dana, please go ahead. You have one minute.

Great. My name is Dana Bullister and I live at 21 Brookline Street, number 105. I am speaking on Garden Street. This is a situation where even if a reasonable person could look at Garden Street and say, there are real advantages to having it one way and some disadvantages, and the same goes for two-way, even if it were not obvious, This is a situation where we need qualified traffic engineers, not citizen scientists, not layperson intuition to be brought into the conversation on this question. and to your credit, you already did. After years of professional study, city staff and traffic experts concluded that transitioning to two-way would make traffic worse and more dangerous for everyone. Please don't mess around with the safety of children and families. Keep the safe infrastructure that our residents deserve. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Rob Everts. Rob, one minute, please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Rob Everts. I live at 20 Newell Street in Cambridge. I'm here to speak in favor of returning Garden Street to two-way. I ride my bike in Cambridge every single day. And until very recently, I commuted for 25 years down that stretch of Garden Street four seasons a year, day and night, during daylight, during nighttime. In thousands of rides on Garden Street, I never felt unsafe as a cyclist. But I always felt this was a solution in search of a problem. But way more important than my personal experience is the easily anticipated negative ripple effects that this change did. So, like, we feel it at the corner of Newell and Stearns where people, a lot of the, you know, the traffic ends up there, taking a left on a narrow street, Stearns at too high a speed. and I can only imagine how people on Raymond Street and some of the other smaller side streets that were never designed to accommodate that much traffic must feel.

Please return it to two-way. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Susan Reed, followed by Kathleen Capel. Susan, one minute.

I'm Susan Reed of 52 Garden Street, and I'm here to support the policy order to halt construction on Garden, Charter Right Number 1. and especially I want to talk about what a great order it is because it stops pitting neighbor against neighbor. Returning Garden Street to two-way traffic was a premature decision based on a hunch, not hard data. The truth is that nobody knows if that change would reduce traffic on side streets because the impact has not been quantified or forecasted. We want our neighbors on Raymond, Buckingham, Appleton and Walker to have the same safe streets that we enjoy. This shouldn't be my street against your street. We all travel in the same areas. And this order is a win for everyone because it finally looks at our traffic holistically. It prioritizes quick build safety measures and demands a community hearing for real solutions.

Let's use engineering judgment not guesses to ensure our entire community moves with fluidity and safety. Thank you.

Thank you. Kathleen Capel followed by James Zald and Christopher Dornan. Kathleen, one minute.

I am Kathleen Capel and I also live at 52 Garden Street and my spouse is a person with a disability. The proposed plan would eliminate the ability of ADA vehicles, shuttles, and other forms of transportation to safely pick up and drop off my husband or other individuals with disabilities. The current configuration works because it keeps that option of safe rides intact for persons with disabilities. Because of this, I am in favor of keeping Garden Street the way it is. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is James Zoll, followed by Christopher Dornan, then Nathan Wang. James, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Thank you. This is James Zoll, 203 Pemberton Street. I'm speaking first in favor of calendar item one with the hope that it will end the tug of war over Garden Street. Traffic department analysis has found that the street's present configuration is preferred for greater safety and less congestion. This ongoing debate has also led to demands that the council help other neighbors get traffic routed off their street and loaded onto someone else's. Let's leave such matters to be decided on the merits by the traffic department. Similar political calculation seems embedded in policy orders four and five, which I hope will not pass. The council has been working on reducing barriers to housing for many years. The AHO has been successful. The recent multifamily zoning is off to a good start.

Policy Order 5 is not the first call to count how many homes we'll need in the future in the hopes that we can just build to that number and then wash our hands of the housing shortage.

Thank you, James. Please email the remainder. Your time expired. Our next speaker is Christopher Dornan. Christopher has not joined us. We will go to Nathan Wang, followed by Lynn Johnston, then Ruben Vierling-Claassen. Nathan you have the floor, you have one minute.

Hello, my name is Nathan Wang. I live nearby at 42 Parker Street and I'm in favor of charter item number one, keeping Garden Street one way. I commute for work and use Garden Street very frequently on my bike. However, I bike drive my car and walk frequently in the area. The current configuration is extremely safe and I find it easy to use as a bicyclist, a car driver, and as a pedestrian. The proposed change that was previously passed is very dangerous as it has two opposing lanes of bike traffic that cars have to look out for. In addition, it'll cost Cambridge taxpayers additional money to change and goes against the objective expert-based findings of the Cambridge Department of Transportation. If converted back to two-way, it goes against the wishes of community members and the expertise of the transportation engineers. That's all I have to say about it. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Lynn Johnston, followed by Ruben Vierling-Clausen.

I'm Lynn Johnston, and I live at 52 Garden Street. I'm for halting construction on Garden Street. Please keep it the way it is. I've lived here for several decades and hope to continue, but the plan for two-way traffic is forcing me to reconsider. By removing our front curb access you are eroding the independence of every senior in my building. When you take away that access you aren't just changing the street, The financial logic is equally flawed. One of our service providers has already informed us they'll charge an extra $33 per visit just to find parking. I pay taxes for the infrastructure of the city but I'm asked to pay a penalty.

We need reliable front door access to our building to remain independent of this community Please halt this construction before you price us and push us out of our homes Thank you

Thank you. We're going to go back to an earlier skipped speaker, Mark Boswell. Mark, you have the floor.

Thank you, but I believe I've already spoken. Oh, sorry.

Our next speaker is Ruben Vierling-Claassen. Ruben, you have the floor. You have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, my name is Ruben Vierling-Clawson, and I am a student at Cambridge Ridge and Latin School speaking on Policy Order 2. I bike Garden Street to get to school every day, and I see countless other students doing the same. With the changes proposed on Guardian Street, including the loss of parked cars acting as a barrier between the cars and the bike lane, the safety of students will be compromised. There will be a very long stretch with almost nowhere for vehicles to pull over except for a single loading zone. This means trucks, rideshares, and vans will have to stop in the bike lane. When that happens, cyclists will have to veer into oncoming car traffic. Imagine yourself having to do that every day on your way to school. The current configuration works. Please vote yes on Policy Order 2 and keep Garden Street safe for the students who rely on it and the parents who can trust that their kids will get to school safely.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Wesley Donahoe, followed by Patricia O'Neill. Sorry, Wesley has not joined the Zoom. We will go to Patricia O'Neill, followed by Scott Kilcoyne. Patricia is not with us.

We will go to Scott. Hi, my name is Patricia O'Neill. I live at 91 Garden Street, and I'm in support of keeping Garden Street as is one way. Two weeks ago, a neighbor spoke about, as an engineer, there's no perfect solution. There are only trade-offs. and I don't believe anyone in this room wants to have an unsafe situation. However, if we look at the trade-off of four lanes of moving vehicles In order to possibly lessen safety, I'm not going to say it's unsafe, but it could lessen safety. It's a bad trade-off. Please do not trade a more safe situation for the potential of relieving congestion. It's a bad trade-off and it's not one I would suggest you want to make. Keep things as they are. Keep the things that are working working.

And let's use that money to fix the things that are not working for the surrounding streets. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Scott Kilcoyne, followed by Jonathan Frieden, then Alex Holman. We're at speaker number 31. Scott, please go ahead. You have one minute.

Thank you. I'm speaking in support of Keeping Garden as is. I personally love it. Ben, just such a big change and improvement to the city and to my experience of the city but beyond that it is the most special street in the city in that it's the street that I see families and kids and students independently biking around more than anywhere else and that's just incredible that's like really shows how successful this project has been and we shouldn't be when there's issues elsewhere in the city the solution shouldn't be to make something worse it should be Look at what has worked. Garden Street has worked at making it safer and calmer.

We should be taking that as inspiration and improving everywhere else in the city to be as special as Garden so that the whole city is that special. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Jonathan Frieden, followed by Alex Holman.

Hi, my name is Jonathan Frieden, and I live at 6 Washington Ave., which is the corner of Linnean and Washington. I'm a daily bicycle commuter and car owner. and I'm urging the council to maintain the current one-way configuration of Garden Street. Living at this intersection, I've seen the impact of these changes firsthand. And while I've noticed an increase in traffic on Linnean, especially shortly after the change, the city's own local traffic analysis confirms that volumes on our street remain lower than what Garden Street once carried. For those of us living here, the trade-off is clear. We have gained a significantly safer neighborhood. Before this change, the intersection at Garden and Linnean seemed very treacherous. Today, it's objectively calmer. The city's latest data shows that sidewalk riding has plummeted from 7% to 2% at Garden and Concord.

If we revert to two-way traffic, we aren't just adding cars, we're reducing safety. and we shouldn't be spending a quarter of a million dollars to undo a safety improvement. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Alex Holman followed by Vanessa Rouget. Alex, one minute.

Hi there, this is Alex Holman, 7 Gladstone Street, and I'm speaking in support of keeping Garden Street one way and maintaining bicycle safety. There have been a ton of good arguments that have all spoken before me, and I'm not going to rehash everything on why keeping Garden Street one way is safer, better, more efficient. and an overall good decision. What I will say is that there have been numerous studies in general that say adding car lanes and adding traffic lanes to thoroughfares does nothing to decrease congestion and Thank you for joining us. and an epicenter of safe bicycling and keeping cycling as a viable means of commuting through our city. And I support any steps to keep improving bicycle safety. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Vanessa Roger. Vanessa, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, my name is Vanessa Roger. I live at 117 Appleton Street. I think over the past four years, we've heard arguments both for and against Garden as a one-way street, and I believe that's because there are thoughtful positions On both sides, I think we all want safe biking lanes and we all want a thriving walkable neighborhood that is not burdened by excessive traffic. So whatever gets decided tonight, I really encourage the city to consider that people walk and bike all around the neighborhood and to think about ways in which they can make that safer and enjoyable for everyone, not just on a single corridor. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Adam Lubin, followed by Douglas Baker, then Prabal Chakraborty. Adam, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Adam Luban. I live at 22 Cottage Park Ave and I'm speaking in support of keeping Garden Street a one way. I'm a graduate student at Boston University and I use the Garden Street bike lane every day to get across Cambridge. The changes to Garden Street will make it less safe for myself and the many other people of all ages, especially students at the local schools who use the bike lane each day. Cambridge is currently ranked the number four city in the country for cycling infrastructure, While I understand that sometimes changes need to be made to our bike lanes, they should be made as a result of reasoned decision making based on data, not on an arbitrary basis. The Council should pause the proposed changes while more data is collected so that an informed decision can be made on what's best for all users of Garden Street.

Otherwise we are wasting our tax dollars making sudden adjustments based on the loud voices of a few that will not address the problems they claim to solve. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Douglas Baker, followed by Praval Chakraborty. Douglas, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, Council. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak. I am here to speak in favor of keeping Garden Street in its present configuration as one way, as a number of people have already stated. The issue was studied by the engineers and I think it's not wise to spend, I guess it's about a quarter of a million dollars to go back on the study that was already done and implemented. I also just want to say that I am a cyclist and I use Garden Street often, but I'm also a motorist and I drive around the city and I live in the Porter Square area. and so I understand nothing is perfect as a driver I don't always love the fact that I can only go one way on Garden Street but I think for the

The kind of greater benefit of the city, these protected bike lanes and going with the studies of the engineers is really important, even if it inconveniences some of us some of the time. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Prabal Chakrabarty, followed by Suzanne Blier, then Kitty Escherzi. Prabal, you have the floor. You have one minute. Please go ahead. If you can try to unmute yourself, you do have the floor. Can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead. I live at 117 Appleton Street. I urge the Council to stick to its decision to restore Garden Street to two-way while also preserving safety and bike lanes in two directions. It was a common sense decision made by the council. All the miles around the entire neighborhood have been clogged since the change was made. Only that mile is quiet. Traffic should be balanced, especially on the key arterial road. The traffic is not just outsiders, it's also Cambridge parents trying to ferry their kids around to soccer and other activities. My daughter is a freshman at CRLS and is on the team at Denny Park on track and cross country. And all the neighborhoods around to get there are clogged. In terms of cost,

The $130,000 cost is less than the average cost of the nine participatory budgeting projects from last year, so it's reasonable for safer traffic that also preserves bike lanes in both directions as the traffic department outlined.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next speaker is Suzanne Blier, followed by Kitty Escrizi, then Brendan Coffey. Suzanne, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Suzanne Blier, 5 Fuller Place. First on the Housing Needs Study, Policy Order 82. Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui and the others for sponsoring this. It is really important to get the right data. and hopefully others will vote for this as well. On restoring Garden Street to two-way, in 2022, the city actually noted that it would bring more traffic to the side streets and indeed it did. There's roughly 3,000 more cars on the adjacent and much more narrow side streets. This has increased not only congestion, but is far more dangerous, adding costs and commute time. A four-fold increase in accidents in Garden and the adjacent streets apparently is what has happened since this happened. And the city never did the proper analysis, any analysis on traffic numbers, on Garden Street itself or other streets south of Huron. Keep it two-way and the bike lanes will be there. It is not a bike highway. It's a critical artery road for traffic out of Cambridge North.

Thank you so much.

Our next speaker is Kitty Escrizi, followed by Brendan Coffey, then Nicole Barna. Kitty, one minute.

Hi, my name is Kitty Skrzy. I live at 47 Inman Street and I'm here to speak in support of keeping Garden Street one way. I often go that way for commuting and also for fun on my bike and walking and running. If Garden Street were to go back to two-way traffic, it would create dangerous turning conflicts and leave very little room for deliveries and pickups, which will inevitably make people block the bike lane, which is an unsafe situation and navigate on a bike. City staff have said that the new design will make traffic worse and cost $250,000 that could be better spent improving safety elsewhere. So please keep Garden Street one way as well as address the safety concerns on neighboring streets. Thank you for listening.

Our next speaker is speaker number 40, Brendan Coffey, followed by Nicole Barna. Brendan is not with us. We will go to Nicole. Nicole, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Nicole Barnon. I live at 29 Bellas Circle. I'm here to voice my strong support for keeping Garden Street as is. The charter number one. Garden Street in its current configuration is one of the best streets in Cambridge for a safe and enjoyable commute. Just the other day, I rode a blue bike from Danahy to the library in under 15 minutes. It was much nicer than driving. Returning Garden Street to two-way vehicular traffic will create dangerous bike routes, increase traffic due to the timing of the lights, and as mentioned by many Garden Street residents, remove critical parking and create challenges for those who live on that street. It is important that our city government makes informed and responsible decisions, especially when those decisions involve spending money. Therefore, I urge city council to vote to keep Garden Street as is, Don't waste our city dollars by removing progress on Garden Street. Instead, use that money to implement traffic calming measures on Sherman, Raymond, Robinson and other streets across the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Daniel Flock. Daniel has not joined us. We will go to Young Kim, followed by Carolyn Fuller, then Mary Jane Kornacki. Young, you have one minute.

It's your turn.

I submitted a letter on tonight's agenda items as a late handout. Hard copies are on your desks. because the issues are complex and interconnected. And the letter kept evolving as I worked through those connections. They share a common issue. We are making policy and spending decisions without a clear, consistent baseline and an accountable budget process tying them together. I don't have enough time to dwell on each item tonight. They are detailed in the handout. My letter highlights three areas where this gap shows up. First, CMA 1, 2, and 14, which are budget process accountability. Second, CMA 23, and 24, together with Policy Order 5, Policy Sequencing and Baseline Evaluation.

Third, Policy Order 4 and Charter Right 1, Implementation, Alignment and System Your time has expired.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Carolyn Fuller. Carolyn, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. My name is Carolyn Fuller, 12 Douglas Street. I'm writing or I'm talking in favor of policy right number one. I'm a 76 year old pedestrian. I don't own either a car or bike, but I walk all over the city. Garden Street is safer for pedestrians now that it is a one-way street, especially at the intersection of Garden and Concord. 35 years ago, our seven-year-old son ran across that intersection to greet his best friend. He had a walk light, but at the time, one of the many traffic lanes merging into that intersection also had a green light. I watched in horror as an ambulance driver nearly ran our son down. Those traffic lights were fixed many decades ago, but it is still a confusing intersection when both Concord Ave and Garden Street are two way streets. Please keep Garden Street one way. It is safer. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Mary Jane Kornacki, followed by Amy Flax.

Mary Jane Kornacki, 103 Avon Hill Street. The first point I want to make is that it strikes me as bad governance to go back and re-decide something. So I'm surprised. I mean, a vote was taken and council approved something and now we find ourselves back here again. Number two, according to the city's own crash data, it isn't safer. Maybe Garden Street. The street, Garden Street, may be safer. And certainly for people who live there and bike there, It's a better situation. Unfortunately, the side streets have the burden of that impact. The side streets are more heavily traversed. There have been accidents on the adjacent streets. I just implore you to think broadly about what you're doing. I would urge a return to two-way, but when I say that I kind of feel like the skunk at the garden party. But I think it's worth considering the broader impacts. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Amy Flax, followed by Jack Silverson, then Jana Odette. Amy, one minute.

Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak and I am very my heart is very warmed by hearing all the comments about people who want to keep Garden Street, the way that it is. I live in the Cambridge Highlands. I'm in my 70s. I've lived in Cambridge for 50 years. So in order for me to get to other parts of the city, it's my favorite route on my bicycle and I bike for I am also a retired public school teacher. and I'm very excited when I see kids riding on Garden Street safely to school or to Danehe Park. It is a link to other parts of the city and for some fragile users. And I urge you to keep it the same way.

It's the best street in the city. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jack Silverson. Jack, you have one minute.

Thank you. 103 Avon Hill Street, Cambridge. Last year, the council voted to return Garden Street to two-way. We were told, given the city's other commitments, we would need to wait a year for the change to be implemented. Why are we here tonight to reconsider the issue that was decided when there are no due data that point that there's anything different Thank you for watching. It's because some members of the current council were not happy with last year's vote, and they believe by bringing the decision back this time with the new council, they're going to get what they want. It's exactly this kind of maneuver that makes one cynical about how this council goes about its business. I say go back on last year's decision and I believe the council will earn an F in governance and lose the trust they so sorely need to be effective. It is extremely upsetting to see you go back on your word.

We were told to wait, we waited, and now at the 11th hour, you change the decision.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jana Odette, followed by Marilee Meyer, then Norman Doust. Jana?

Hi, my name is Jana Odette. I live at 176 Larch Road. Basically, I kind of feel like Mary Jane Kornacki with being a skunk at the garden party, but I do feel that returning Garden Street to two-way... Thank you very much. We really need hard data on everything, and that is Policy Order No. 82, which is the Housing Needs Study, Policy Order 81, which is the Neighborhood Guide to Multifamily Housing. It's like, why are we doing something that sounds good that may not be good? I don't know. So I totally relate to what the seniors on Garden Street are saying, that it's safer, that

Our next speaker is Marilee Meyer, followed by Norman Doust.

Marilee, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

I'm Marilyn Meyer, 10 Dana Street, referring to 4 and 5. Council needs to find bipartisan clarification for multifamily guidelines, oversight, and measurable housing goals. Developers have already taken advantage, building to maximum dimensions as of right without fair neighborhood engagement. Data was sorely lacking in the election rush. As a result, at least 117 affordable properties have been torn down for luxury units, raising land prices. The Boston Globe reveals the density frenzy exemplified by Baldwin increasing by 64%, Riverside by 55%, and Huron Ave by 42%. Ignoring the holistic housing equation is impractical and myopic. Please support

More quantifiable data and oversight for a more responsible non-idealistic ideological analysis. Thank you.

Thank you. We have reached speaker number 50, Norman Doust, followed by Andrew Zhu, then William McIverney. Norman?

My name is Norman Doust from 157 Raymond Street. I'm in favor of the current policy order which leaves the Garden Street one way. Current configuration in Garden Street has worked fine for more than a year. It works fine for the people in the neighborhood, and it works fine for all the people passing through, of whom there are quite a few. I support having any future changes implemented based on best engineering practices and the analysis of transportation data, and I trust our Department of Transportation to do that. I expect that as a result of that, any of the recommended changes will be less costly and certainly less intrusive to all our neighborhoods. For these reasons and many others which others have mentioned before. In the interest of time, I encourage you to vote in favor of this policy order. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Andrew Zhu, followed by Bill McIverney, then Carol Lynn Alpert.

Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Tso. I live at 292 Prospect Street, and I speak today in support of Charter Right 1 and a one-way Garden Street. My argument is simple. The current one-way solution for Garden Street came about as a result of months' worth of neighborhood and public engagement. and from that effort came out this community solution, a one-way garden street. It should be championed. It should be held as the prime example of the good that can come when our public engagement process is done right. Of what happens when city staff and residents come together as collaborators and not as enemies. So why reject it? The move back to a two-way garden street is not just fiscally irresponsible, not just recklessly unsafe. The moving back to a two-way garden street is a partisan insult to our civic process. It is an indignity, a spit in the face of the good city staff and Cambridge citizens who sat through those meetings and made their voices heard. So I ask this council, Please support these people, support our civic process, and support the one-way solution, the people's solution, and vote in favor of this policy order today. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Bill McIverney. Bill, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Bill McAfee, 12 Douglas Street. First of all, Mayor Siddiqui and Councilors, I want to thank you for the safety improvements that have been made around the city. As someone who walks roughly five miles a day, I have noticed that between roughly 2018 and 2019 when crossing a street I'd experience someone running that crosswalk a car running that crosswalk about once a week that number has gone down to almost once a month. So thank you. I'm definitely in favor of keeping Garden Street One Way. Please don't revert to the days when crossing the street was basically a you bet your life. Thank you.

Our next speaker is Carol Lynn Alpert. Carolyn, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Yes, in Strawberry Hill, we've collected 191 signatures asking for protection from some of the new burdens we will face if a new oversized luxury development is approved as proposed at 95 Cushing. Our signatories had lots of questions and there was no one to ask. No city staff attend developers notification meetings. Attendees were unaware of the new standards and were astonished at what was being proposed. Is it true that four-story, six-unit condo buildings don't have to provide inclusionary units nor parking nor green space? Is it true that there is no longer a way to have neighbors' concerns heard? The current user guide to the City of Cambridge Zoning Ordinance was last updated in fall of 2004. It makes sense to update the user guide now so there's a reliable source of information.

We think we should be hearing from the city what has been authorized not from developers.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Dura Winder.

Hello, I'm Tara Winder from Sherman Street. I'm here to support keeping Garden Street one way. Okay. Okay. Do I have to start over? Okay. Bike safety, removal of more parking, school safety have improved. But my major concern is something that has not been addressed here this evening, which is that the change to changing Garden Street to two ways will be a major traffic issue on Sherman Street. Before the change, Sherman Street was backed up in traffic Two from the fire station all the way down to Renja Avenue. That only made negotiating...

In our neighborhood difficult, but the toxic emissions from the idling cars was unhealthy for those of us who live in the neighborhood. The two-way goes through the traffic will be even more significant on Sherman Street to increase the traffic since the change. Since Garden Street became one way, we have had much less traffic and less idling cars. The other problem is that there is a 19-unit Low Income Project being built and several other projects as well as 2,000 plus units.

Thank you, Dura. Apologies, your time has expired. Please email the remainder of your comment. Please send it to citycouncil at cambridgema.gov. Our next speaker is Christina Ullman, followed by Michael Yogman, then Nate Sharp. Christina, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, I'm Christina Ullman at 186 Walden Street. I'm calling in support of keeping garden one way. I live in the Garden Street neighborhood and I drive or bike on Garden Street at least once or twice a day every day to get my kids to the high school and to commute to my job on Broadway in Kendall School. It is by far the safest way for high school kids, families and college students to travel this major artery. When I bike this stretch I feel like I can actually relax and enjoy biking and not pedal for dear life like I do through Harvard Square and down Broadway. And with these gas prices I'm trying to bike as much as possible. The width of the bike lanes right now and the fact that cars are not turning up the street is safest and I find it's forgiving for the high school athletes who don't typically wear helmets and the college students who don't typically stay in the proper lane and

It didn't take more than a few weeks for the traffic to settle down. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Michael Yogman. Michael.

Yes, can you? We can hear you. Policy States 82 and 81. My name is Michael Yovanovitch. I live on Wyoming Road.

Michael, I think you maybe signed on to two devices or maybe you're playing the meeting somewhere else. So if you can mute one of your devices and then I will unmute you again. If you can go ahead and unmute yourself. We're still getting some feedback. Try now.

Okay, how about that?

We're still getting the feedback. Can you please sign out of the Zoom completely? Sign back in and raise your hand and I'll call on you again when you're back in the Zoom. But please sign out on... All their devices. Our next speaker is Nate Sharp followed by Leslie Bliss. Nate, you have one minute. Please go ahead. Can you hear me? We can. Please go ahead.

Great. Yeah, so I'm speaking in support of keeping Garden Street one way the way it is. I think the considerations that went into making this change in the first place were well considered. and flip-flopping like this on major construction projects would not set a good precedent in the city to say the least. And that there are better, cheaper and ultimately more effective ways to address The negative externalities of the current configuration in terms of traffic on side streets and whatnot. and I encourage the council to find ways to do so while keeping the major infrastructure the way it is right now. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Leslie Bliss, followed by Catherine O'Connor. Actually, we're going to try Michael again. Hold on one second. Michael, if you can unmute yourself.

Yes, I think that's better. On Wyman Road, and I'm speaking on behalf of Policy 82 in a city and 81 in a city with deep expertise in data management. It is extremely negligent for the Council not to support a study on housing needs before pursuing a drastic upzoning proposal supporting developers with no data that will encourage affordable housing. on policy statement 81, the lack of transparency for the details of up-zoning puts residents at an extreme disadvantage and prevents any review of permits regarding tree canopy, fire safety, traffic, attention to design, destruction of neighborhoods, incentivizing developers and encouraging gentrification with little or no impact on affordable housing. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Leslie Bliss, followed by Catherine O'Connor, then Jordy Olley. Leslie, you have one minute, please go ahead. Leslie Bliss, if you can unmute yourself.

Leslie Bliss, 127 Raymond Street. I'm a walker, cyclist, EV driver, and a resident of Raymond Street in favor of keeping Garden Street one way. Personally, I love biking Garden Street, It's a peaceful and safe way for me to commute. But this is not about me. It's about the kids. Our kids. Vehicle traffic is down on Linnien, making it safer and more pleasant for kids to walk, bike, and scooter to school there. One Way Garden Street provides a great way for our high school students to bike safely and independently to activities at Danahy. I might potentially experience some minor inconvenience in backing my car out, but how could this possible inconvenience be more important than our kids' safety? I vote for kids safety. Please keep Garden Street one way. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Catherine O'Connor. Katherine has not joined us. We are going to go to speaker number 60, Jordi Olley. Jordi has not joined. We will go to Adam Mitchell, followed by Robert Massey. Adam, you have the floor if you can unmute yourself.

Hi, can you hear me? Very good.

We're getting feedback, Adam. If you have another device that you're signed in, can you please mute it?

I'm not signed into anything else.

Okay, please go ahead.

Thank you, Council Members, for this opportunity to comment on Garden Street bike lanes. Today I ask you to keep Garden Street's current configuration in place. I strongly support the one-way traffic flow and separated bike lanes that were implemented following a transparent planning process and extensive public review in 2022. Reverting Garden Street to a two-way traffic would undermine that process and sends them A concerning precedent, one that enables dissatisfied groups to overturn established city projects simply because they disagree with them. I urge you to keep Garden Street One way. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Robert Massey. Robert has not joined us. We will go to Itamar Turner-Troring. Itamar, you have the floor. You have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Itamar Turner-Trowring. I live at 139 Oxford Street. On the weekend, I was biking back with my wife from Watertown to Porter Square, where we live. and on Garden Street we had to slow down for a little like a kid who was like Four? Five? was biking in the separated bike lane and their father said, was walking by them on the sidewalk. So it is currently a street so safe that parents are fine just walking side by side with their very young children on bikes. and so it's really nice to see. I would like to keep it that way, but there's also other side effects, like if you continue past garbage, Keep going. You end up past the firehouse. There's just much less car traffic going that way.

So when you're biking towards Danny, for example, there's a lot more car traffic. So I hope you'll keep it the way it is. Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to go back to Daniel Vlock, followed by Lynn McGregor, then Mark Eisenberg. Daniel, if you're able to unmute.

Hello, can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

Can you hear me now?

We can hear you.

Yes, my name is Daniel Vlaca. Oh, thank you. My name is Daniel Block of 50 Buckingham Street. I'm also head of the West Cambridge Neighborhood Coalition. I'm here to implore the Council for the safety of our children to vote no on Charter Right 1. We support bicycle access, safety, and the introduction of bike lanes throughout Cambridge. But more importantly, we value the safety and well-being of our neighbors, which includes cyclists, pedestrians, and children. and data provided the council we have documented based on the city's own crash database that since the change to a one-way street there has been close to a four-fold increase in cyclist-related accidents on the residential streets surrounding Garden Street. We have spoken to pro-bicycle proponents who support charter number one. They have sought to shift the blame of these actions to anything but Garden Street. IS-1 opponent, whose name I will not mention, that if we are frozen to the status quo, will he at least acknowledge his complicity? Should we continue to see more spike-affiliated accidents?

who responded by saying, and I quote, I'm comfortable with my position and it's not mine alone. I would ask the council to do what those pro-bicycle proponents seem unwilling to do and to put the safety of the surrounding community first. If not you must accept your complicity in any future accidents.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Lynn McGregor, followed by Mark Eisenberg, then Gloria Korsman. For those waiting, we are at speaker number 64. Lynn, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Lynn McGregor. I live at 72 Lexington Avenue and I bike on the Garden Street separated bike lanes twice a day to commute between my child's childcare facility It's a lot safer than what we had before. That's a lot safer than the proposed alternatives, especially at the intersection with Huron Ave. Thank you so much for joining us. as others have mentioned a very collaborative process was actually what resulted in the current configuration where some people really wanted to maintain parking which the current design does There are definitely better ways to address the cut through traffic concerns from surrounding residents. I'd also like to thank the traffic department for their hard work keeping all of us safe, especially those of us who like to bike and walk through the city. Thank you.

Thank you. We're going to go back to Catherine O'Connor, who is able to join us now. Catherine, if you can unmute yourself, you have the floor. Katherine to unmute from the phone. I believe it's star six. You're unmuted. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. My name is Catherine O'Connor. I live at 145 Hamilton Street in Cambridgeport. I'm calling in support of One Way Garden Street on maintaining that design. I currently ride a cargo bike up and down Garden Street two to three times per week with my child, at least in one direction. And this is from spring through fall and some winter. This is for accessing after school and the playing fields that are at Danahy and in that area. And so really like to maintain the existing one-way Thank you for joining us. Pretty tricky when you have a vehicle that causes you to leave a bike lane when there are two lanes of car traffic.

Nobody wants you in those car lanes and especially a cargo bike lane. So certainly really do appreciate the current

Thanks, Catherine. Your time's expired. Please email the remainder. Our next speaker is Mark Eisenberg, followed by Gloria Korsman and Jamie Sciocco. Mark, you have one minute. Mark is not in the Zoom. We will go to Gloria Korsman. Gloria, you have the floor. Please go ahead.

Gloria Coorsman, 91 Montgomery Street, supporting Charter Right No. 1. The current Garden Street design works, and that matters. The traffic calming chicane flows cars effectively. The wide bike lanes give people room to ride safely. Families can ride side by side and faster cyclists can pass without conflict. it's a design that supports riders of all ages and abilities and as a person with a permanent injury safety is optional for me I depend on infrastructure that feels predictable and secure And if this design goes forward, I won't feel comfortable biking to work anymore and I'll probably drive. And that's the opposite of what we're trying to achieve as a city. We want fewer cars, safer streets, and more people choosing to bike.

So please support charter right number one and keep a design that's already working safely and effectively for this community. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Jamie Sciocco, followed by Fred Good, then Jill Crittenden. Jamie, you have the floor. Please go ahead. You have one minute.

Hi, thank you. I'm Jamie Siaco. I live at 12 Ringe Avenue in North Cambridge. I drive and bike down Garden Street often, and I strongly support leaving it in the current one-way configuration. I lived right off Garden Street for five years under the old configuration and I would not want the city to go back to that. I've just found that driving, biking, and walking is safer and more relaxing when the street is one way. Thank you so much. I yield my time.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Fred Good. Fred, you have one minute.

Fred Good, 27, Grey Gardens East. The issue was a 2000 stretch of Garden Street with a fire station at one end and a music school with 300 students at the other. and multifamily homes. Also in between are three separate student dorms, family graduate complexes with 1,600 residents. and adjacent is a 300-student Graham Park School, plus food service loading docks for the complexes, and there are entrances for a sports complex, the Harvard Observatory, the Press Building. This is a congested, active neighborhood. Four years ago, our transportation department listened to and engaged the neighborhood over many, many months. It was city management at its best.

For decades, the city has been converting two-way streets to one way to make the street

Thank you Fred, your time has expired. Please email the remainder. Thank you. Our next speaker is Jill Crittenden. Jill, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, Jill Crittenden, 187 Fairweather Street. I'm speaking on charter right number one in support of keeping Garden Street one way. I'm very proud of our city council for working to create high traffic corridors in our city so that walkers and bikers can travel with reduced air and noise pollution. My family and I travel on Garden Street almost every day, walking, biking, and driving. We have two teens that bike to the school and I walk every day and love how much quieter and cleaner it is since it has changed to have reduced car traffic. When driving, we return home on Concord or Mass Ave to Walden Street with no problem. We are also much happier with the reduced confusion at the five-way intersection with Huron and Sherman Street, both as drivers and walkers and bikers. Please don't spend the budget on disrupting the progress you've made. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is David Marini. David, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, good evening. Can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

Thank you. My name is Davide Marini. I live on Garden Street. And I would like to start by thanking the mayor and the city council for the amazing work that you're doing in service to our community. I know it's a difficult job, so thank you so much. Tonight, I would like to speak in support of keeping Gardner Street as is. I remember when the street was two-way, I felt unsafe biking or crossing it on foot. The current design feels so much safer. I was also very impressed by the process that was used to arrive at this design, which included extensive feedback from the community and the transportation commissioner. So I don't fully understand why we're revisiting those results, but I think what we have is elegant. It's efficient and I think it's the best trade-off among competing interests to accommodate cyclists, pedestrian safety, parking spaces, traffic flow. So I strongly support keeping it unchanged. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is David Wyman, followed by Maggie Baratz, then Adam Baratz. We are at speaker number 71. David, you have the floor. Please unmute yourself.

Can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

Dear Council, my name is David, and my wife Becky and I live on Garden Terrace, just off of Garden Street. I'm speaking in support of keeping Garden Street one way. We have three boys, ages seven, six, and four, and we bike and walk as a family to places like Armando's, High Rise, Honeycomb, Bagelsaurus. We felt the difference. When Garden was two-way, it felt chaotic. Now it's calmer and safer for walking and biking with our kids. Both the data and our experience show that one-way improves safety. Garden already carries a heavy share of traffic. It's reasonable for nearby streets to share some of the load. I also support making safety improvements on nearby streets so we improve the whole neighborhood, not just shift problems. This is about what kind of place we want to be. One where kids can safely bike around their neighborhood. Please keep Garden Street one way. Thanks.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Maggie Baratz. Maggie, one minute.

Maggie Barrett's 37 Walker Street. I'm representing 758 of my neighbors who have signed a petition asking to leave Garden Street as it is. Voting against this policy order is a choice to make congestion worse and to make conditions for everyone less safe. You have a chance tonight to vote for a better outcome. You can make it better for people who have a harder time moving their own bodies quickly. crossing the street, catching rides, doing the stuff of daily life. You've heard from them. You can make it better for students getting to class and sports practice, better for people who will have all their parking taken away, and better for the surrounding side streets By requiring traffic calming measures to make them safer too. That last part I'm so heartened by. This is a thoughtful proposal to improve street safety throughout the neighborhood rather than shifting harm from one street to another. supporting this policy order accomplishes all of that. And we're counting on you. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Adam Barrett. Adam, you have the floor, please go ahead.

Hi, I'm speaking in support of this policy order. My name's Adam Barrett of 37 Walker Street. Last year's order only deepened polarization in my neighborhood about the correct design of Garden Street. If we continue with this plan, a different group of people will be unhappy. This new order isn't saying making this cut your baby in half, pick one over the other. It provides a way out, letting us explore new options and finding something that will be genuinely popular. This whole project has been dotted with criticisms of process and community engagement, and this is an opportunity for the council to show how they want things done. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Richard Fryerman. Richard, one minute. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Richard Fryerman, 39 RC Kelly Street. You've heard a lot of great comments tonight. I'd like to amplify one thing. If Garden Street is changed back from one way, it won't go back to what it was. It'll go back to a very different design with two straight through lines of traffic. A crowded bike lane, very little buffer and no parking between the bike lanes and the cars. We've heard from a lot of folks tonight, and as might be unusual for discussions around bikes in Cambridge, it's really been a wonderful cross-section of people in our neighborhood. Garden Street is really important to a lot of folks. I'm not here to speak against my neighbor's streets being made safer.

I just don't think that that can happen at the expense of a street that's already working and at a cost of a quarter of a million dollars. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Janie Katzkristi. Janie, you have one minute. Please go ahead. Janie, if you can unmute yourself.

Hi there. My name is Janie Katz-Christy and I live at 166 A Elm Street. I wanted to thank the city staff and the city councilors who created and supported Garden Street's current design. It was extensively debated and well considered and I urge you to keep it. As others have said, you have heard from so many people who live in this area. who have incredibly reasonable and compelling reasons to keep Garden Street as it is. They represent all ages, all modes of transportation, and all kinds of reasons for traveling and ways that they travel. and they are grateful for what they have and are begging you, the city council, to keep the current configuration as is.

I hope, I find it hard to understand or to justify undoing it. And I hope that we can all move on and perfect the rest of Thanks, Janie.

Please email the remainder of your comments. Your time has expired. Our next speaker is Matthew Lung, followed by Paul O'Connell, then Joshua Resnick.

Hi everyone, my name is Matthew Leung and I live at 29 Garden Street. Like many of my neighbors living in my building, which has over 70 families, I'm very concerned about the city's proposed plan to make Garden Street two-way. I bike on Garden Street every day to get to school and I believe that the proposed two-way bike lane would increase conflicts and confusion at intersections, particularly at Garden and Concord. and Garden in Huron, which is a five-way intersection and is very complicated. The current design with two separated one-way bike lanes is much safer for cyclists. And Garden Street is also home to multiple schools with over 1,500 students combined, including me, who walk and bike every day. So for their safety, for all of our safety, I urge the City Council to please reconsider and to Keep Garden Street One Way. Thank you very much.

Our next speaker is Paul O'Connell. Paul, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, my name is Paul O'Connell. I'm resident at Garden Terrace off Garden Street. I believe it would be detrimental to the safety of pedestrians and cyclists on Garden Street if it were returned to two-way traffic. And I think there's some strong consensus around that this evening. At the same time, as a local resident, it obviously benefits myself and my family disproportionately, but I want to recognize and hear and understand the concerns of other residents as well on nearby streets. about traffic congestion. Weighing everything up, I don't believe that the city's own report supports the idea that congestion would be significantly ameliorated by Garden Street's reversion to two-way traffic. and I do think a pause at this juncture would give the city more time to address the congestion concerns elsewhere. So I do support maintaining the current status but I'm looking for a data-driven community solution such as targeted traffic calming. Thank you.

Thank you. We will go to Joshua Resnick, followed by Sarah Block, then Kyle Van Joe. Josh, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Good evening. Josh Resnick, Wyman Road. I support PO 81 and 82, but they are not nearly enough. The MFH ordinance has systematically harmed Cambridge residents while providing a windfall monetary gift to out-of-town billionaire developers who are demolishing our neighborhoods and replacing them with high-end apartments not affordable housing for families. This is not sustainable housing policy. It is an ill-conceived gift to billionaire developers dressed up as progressive policy. which raises a question, for whom does this council actually work? Because when out-of-town developers of questionable ethical standards who contributed to your campaigns appear before zoning boards with active business interests, residents have every right to ask, is this policy or is it pay-to-play? Pass PO 81 and 82, but also impose an immediate moratorium on this absurd law, buying time to develop actually thoughtful solutions that achieve affordability for families.

while also honoring what makes Cambridge worth living in, our history, our livability, our multi-generational neighborhoods, our green space, and our environmental legacy. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Sarah Block followed by Kyle Vangel.

Hi, I'm Sarah Block. I live at 24 Shepherd Street. We've owned a house there since 1976. And I'm urging you to keep Garden Street as is. Project that almost all my neighbors are spent a lot of time and energy and They're brains to figure out a solution that works really well for seniors, for cyclists, for people walking, and even for people driving. When you go down Shepherd Street, it used to be that you would get stuck there for a long time trying to turn left to go to Harvard Square because there were cars coming towards you. I'm also really worried that a lot of people that I've talked to who are against the project believe it will miraculously

The traffic department has predicted it will take two to four minutes longer to cross that intersection at the firehouse. leading to a degraded experience for all people walking, driving, and biking through an intersection of larger areas. Please don't do this.

Thank you. Our next speaker is speaker number 80, Kyle Vangel. For those waiting, we have about 16 speakers to go. Kyle, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Good evening. I'm Kyle Vangel. I'm the director of projects and planning at the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority. And I'm here to speak about the Mass Ave active use petition. So the CRA is involved in creating housing and promoting retail vibrancy in many projects throughout the city. We deeply appreciate these issues. But we do have concerns. about an active use requirement on Mass Ave north of Porter Square. We're involved in two projects in this area. One of these sites, 2400 Mass Ave, is 27,000 square feet. It's located at a prominent corner. It lends itself very well to future active use on the ground floor. However, we're concerned about the other smaller site, 2326 Mass Ave., This is a 5,000 square foot mid block site where the CRA announced plans for a 16 unit condo building with three affordable units.

Sites like this are well suited for modestly sized residential projects, but the margins are small and the ground floor must be surgically designed to accommodate needed circulation and building systems. It could be difficult for a small condo association to deal with an active use. So we appreciate consideration for other options or limitations on this idea.

Thank you. Thanks. Our next speaker is Tess Hoffman, followed by Ian McGoldrick, then Cecilia Cobb. Tess, you have the floor. You have one minute.

Good evening, Tess Hoffman. I live at 67 Washburn Ave in North Cambridge, speaking tonight about the Mass Ave active use petition. In addition to being a resident of North Cambridge, I'm also a project manager at the Cambridge Redevelopment Authority. I followed the MAPS process and the Mass Ave rezoning closely and was surprised to see this change being considered just at the conclusion of our RFP process for 2326 Mass Ave, which had contemplated an optional active ground floor use. While I strongly support retail on North Mass Ave, I think the best way to do that is by supporting greater housing density without necessarily adding more storefronts. This requirement frustrates all development by forcing a retail component into each potential new project without a strong market demand. Please consider changes that would allow more flexibility to create a variety of housing typologies and unmitigated good for our neighborhood. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Ian McGoldrick, followed by Cecilia Cobb. Ian, you have the floor. Please go ahead.

Hi, I'm Ian McGoldrick, 18 Faneuilwood Circle, unit number three. The city council should not be designing streets and really shouldn't be overriding the process that experts have laid out. This flip-flopping will continue if allowed to stand on Garden Street, and it will not be the last time that either side decides to squeeze their desires through a 5-4 vote if allowed to stand in this vote. Previous speakers tonight have pointed out that flip-flopping is bad governance. The bad governance here was the previous council setting a foolish and dangerous precedent by overriding the public process, their own traffic experts, and city staff in a narrow five-floor boat. This opened the door to allow for future councils to override or undo by simple majority the work done, the money spent, and the hours of community process put in by both staff and community members. This was the moment of bad governance in this debate.

The city staff are completely demoralized and have no idea if the work they have poured their lives into for years will be overturned in a flash. Thank you for joining us. Garden Street was a motivating issue for several constituents to vote on last cycle and people have weighed in. This vote was their only recourse to weigh in decision made by the last council. People have voted. Please listen to them.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Cecilia Cobb, followed by Andrea Elasi, then Malcolm Bliss. Cecilia? Cecilia, you have the floor if you can unmute yourself.

Hi, my name is Cecilia Cobb. I live at 82 Hampshire Street. I would like to voice opposition to the current active use zoning ordinance as it's currently proposed on Northern Mass Ave. I think it could be a really great proposal with a couple changes. The petition first goes against the really fantastic map study and public process that was done. And that map study recommended a concentrated zone of retail at two points at the intersection of Linear Park and at the intersection of Ridge Avenue. I would propose modifying the proposed zoning change to comply with that instead of going in direct conflict with previous studies. I also have some concerns that it could harm the ability for housing to continue to be built in this area. This would be the third zoning change seen in this little area in the last two years. which makes it really not appealing for folks to build there.

And also I have concerns that affordable homeowners will be burdened with the cost of vacant retail. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Andrea Ilese. I'm sorry if I'm mispronouncing your last name. Andrea?

Can you hear me?

We can please go ahead

Oh, hi. So my name is Andrea Elisey and I live with my seven-year-old son at 700 Huron Avenue. We use Garden Street a lot, biking and walking, sometimes driving. He goes to Graham Parks. He goes to Tobin. I can't tell you. And he goes to, on Sherman Street, the RoboHub, a lot of activities in that area. And I can't tell you what relief I feel when I finally get to Garden Street from wherever I am because I feel it's so safe. So I strongly support the current design, the current way the street is done and I have strong support for this. I would also like to express my frustration regarding the significant time and resources the Council had dedicated to reconsidering this method. It's concerning that the Council would consider spending additional funds to undo an infrastructure project that was thoroughly researched, agreed upon, and proven to be effective and safe and efficient.

So I urge you to maintain the current state of Garden Street and instead direct the consultation to other pressing problems. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to making a good decision for all of us.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Malcolm Bliss, followed by Joseph Konopka, then Benjamin Flame. Malcolm, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi. My name is Malcolm Bliss. I live at 127 Raymond Street between Walden and Upland. I strongly urge the city to leave Garden Street one way. City data shows this and similar designs result in more bicycle trips. For bicycle trips means less pollution, less congestion, less carbon emissions, less noise, less wear on our streets, and more pleasant interaction with our fellow Cantabrigians. I live very close to Garden Street. and my experience, the one way on Garden Street is no burden or zero inconvenience to me. I back out of my driveway without any problem. Please keep Garden Street one way. Use the quarter million dollars for more progress, such as the one way on Garden Street and other projects. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Joseph Konopka. Joseph, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me?

We can. Please go ahead.

Okay. Yeah, I just wanted to express my support for... Keeping the current, the one-way setup for cars on Garden Street. I both drive and cycle a lot in Cambridge. Yes, support keeping it this way, as other people have said, for safety reasons. And then the big thing being just, Even if it was sort of equal, changing it back, it's $250,000 of work that could be better spent on other street safety projects. projects. And I'll just say, you know, a couple of weeks ago, not in Cambridge, by the way, but I Thank you. Our next speaker is

Benjamin Flame.

Hi, thank you. Ben Flame, 98 Raymond. This is a recurring issue on Garden Street because it affects so many people and it can be addressed with a simple compromise and signals what kind of city we want to have. Most neighbors all around the area want garden back to two-way, and many have written in begging for two-way traffic, and many more are not writing into the council since they're frustrated that last year's vote might be reversed. As we've noted, this issue isn't just about Garden Street. It's much broader. All groups should be taken into account. Yes, Garden Street is now Ghost Town Street. That's wonderful for the people who live there, but how about the thousands of people who live and commute around the bottleneck that it's created? They deserve a voice and safe streets as well. That's why we arrived at a compromise, protected by claims with two-way traffic. It was proposed by the city and they certified it as safe. We then improved on it by working with Harvard to create a bump-out across from the apartment buildings to respond to the needs of those residents. Nothing is perfect but returning to two-way traffic is the most fair to the most people.

We need to do the right thing here for everyone, not just the loudest voices in the room or on the computer. This feels right because it makes logical sense. Let's reopen this major artery this summer, please. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is David Halperin. David, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Good evening. David Halperin, 14 Valentine Street, Unit 3. I'm also speaking in support of keeping Garden Street one way. I think the current design is really great. It should be the best for all road users, even cars, who will be disadvantaged by the change to two ways by losing parking and increased traffic delays from the changes to signal timing as the city staff has indicated. The current design allows for more traffic calming and shorter crossing distances for pedestrians, so it'll be better for vulnerable road users. It doesn't make any sense for the city to spend time and money reconfiguring Garden Chute again. After a community process decided on this design and against staff recommendations to keep it one way when there are so many other streets that are in need of our attention. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Randy Stern. Randy, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is Randy Stern. I live at 12 Kenwood Street. I speak to ask the council to reverse the error in which the council micromanaged the city traffic department recommendation to keep Garden Street one way. staff after an extensive community process came up with and implemented a creative solution to provide optimal safety as well as parking for abutters, making Garden Street one way and adding a safe bike lane. Please leave Garden Street as it is. Please also request the Traffic Department to engage in a new community process to design traffic calming for nearby streets where neighbors have safety concerns. making Garden Street two ways will just shift the congestion problems elsewhere as the city staff has indicated. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Josephine Mullen, followed by Ulrika Brand, then Mark Goldberg. We are at speaker number 90. Josephine, you have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hi, Josephine Mullen, 40 Gold Star Road. I would like to support Charter Right Number 1. Please keep Garden Street one way. It's the only really safe way to travel by bicycle to Harvard Square and beyond from North Cambridge and also a ton of kids use it to ride to and from CRLS as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Ulrika Brand.

Yes, hello.

My name is Ulrika Brand. I live at 35 Raymond Street. I've lived here for 20 years. And I was very disappointed that the city council changed his mind on a decision it made a year ago. I do think that that lessens the credibility of the city council if it goes changing things back and forth. I'm concerned about the way the one-way traffic on Garden Street affects Raymond Street. Our traffic has increased and increased over the years and we do have a street where Schoolchildren walk up and down to Grumman Park School. And, you know, there are traffic accidents in our street. A car was totaled right outside our house because of a person driving too fast at night and therefore I really feel the city needs to be more thoughtful about the way it

Roots traffic through the city and you need to look at how neighboring streets are affected. I live on a street that's parallel to Garden Street and I'm happy for the people on Garden Street that they have a quieter street, but It's really not fair to reroute traffic onto other people's streets. Thank you for your comments. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Mark Goldberg, followed by Charles Franklin, then Justin Safe. Mark, you have the floor. You have one minute. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I live on Raymond Street. I've lived in Cambridge for 40 years. I am an avid cyclist over a thousand miles a year. I used to commute to Kendall Square. I'm 69 years old. I ride cargo bikes, tandem bikes, road bikes, mountain bikes. I've been going across the city for 40 years. What cyclists want are separated lanes. The original design of Garden Street was ill-advised and ill-considered and ill-vetted. It did not talk to the neighbors. It was pushed through into the summer. It did not talk to the surrounding neighborhoods. And you've got a bad solution. The neighborhoods met with the traffic planners. They proposed mitigations, and those failed. There's no trust whatsoever. the problem is it was poorly designed to begin with and unimaginative you need to consider other solutions that take the flow completely off of garden counselors is it any surprise that the only people who are supporting this are the people who live on garden My God!

Try putting the bike pass into the parks and use the underpass off Raymond to go to Cedar Street. That will help.

Thank you, Mark. Your time expired. Our next speaker is Charles Franklin, followed by Justin Safe, and our final speaker will be Heather Hoffman. Charles, you have one minute.

Charles Franklin, 162 Hampshire Street, which is notably not Garden Street, even though I support this PO to leave Garden Street the way it is. I believe that the city staff has said that this is the safest option, and if they didn't, then you should go with whatever the staff said is safest, though my recollection is that the current configuration is the safest one. to vote against their recommendation for the safest one is to say that it was to Thank you. Thank you. Some other goal. We should know what it is. Thank you.

Thank you. Our next speaker is Justin Safe. Justin, you have the floor. You have one minute.

Hi, Justin Safe. On the multifamily policy orders, I think, you know, housing needs assessment should not hold up new housing moving forward. We know we need significant amounts of new housing. The biggest way to assess the need for new housing is by looking at rent, rents and housing costs. They're sky high. They abundantly indicate that we need much more new housing in Cambridge. In terms of a guide, I mean, a guide should talk about why Cambridge ended exclusionary zoning and the long history of residential segregation associated with it where apartments were abandoned. I should talk about the benefits. There's housing cost benefits, but there's also the fact that these proposals include Property tax revenue is increasing by four to five times at a time when we're talking about constraints and the need for future budget cuts.

Well, we can avoid that if we build new multifamily housing. Thank you.

Thank you. Our final speaker is Heather Hoffman. Heather, you have the floor. You have one minute. Please go ahead.

Hello, Heather Hoffman, 213 Hurley Street. I am utterly thrilled to hear two of the biggest Build Baby Build folks telling us that they are terrified that we might possibly study housing and what Cambridge needs and how we might get there instead of just going with ideology. So I really support this policy order. With respect to work room co-ops, I am the mother of One of the founders of a worker-owned co-op in Somerville, New Leaf Espresso, and I am also thrilled to see that. With respect to Linear Park and Gold Star Mothers Park, In the case of Linear Park, we're spending a ton of money that we don't need to spend so that we can kill a ton of trees. With respect to Gold Star Mothers Park, I hope that we figure out how to make this a park again.

and finally flooding and extreme heat, how about some trees instead of paving everything?

Thank you. Thank you. Madam Mayor, that is all that we're signed up.

Thank you, Naomi, for leading public comment on a motion by Councilor Flaherty to close public comment. We'll do a roll call.

Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Public comment is now closed. There's no submission of the record. There's no reconsiderations. We now move on to the city manager's agenda. There are 25 city manager agenda items. Pleasure of the city council.

Councilor Nolan. Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I'd like to pull items one through and including. 14.

Councilor Nolan will pull items 1 through 14. Pleasure of the City Council. Councilor Al-Zubi.

I'd like to pull item 15.

Councilor Al-Zubi pulls item 15. Pleasure of the City Council. I'd like to pull 25. Councilor Zusy pulls 25. We'll also pull 23 and 24 as they're zoning related. Any others? Mayor Siddiqui. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yeah, number 19. And number 19. So far we've pulled one through 15, 19, 23, 24, and 25. Any other items before we... Do a roll call on the balance. Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call, please.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

The consent. Agenda is adopted. The balance will go to the first item. which was a communication transmitted from Ian Huang, City Manager, relative submission of the FY2027 budget and appropriation orders for the General Fund, Water Fund, and Public Investment Fund. Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes, as a co-chair of finance with Councilor Azzubi, I think it's exciting to hear that... Just as a visual, we all got our budget books. They're right on our desk. They've been delivered. I believe it's probably online, but I'm not sure. It's something that we will rely on as we head into the budget and finance committee Mayor Siddiqui It's to set the stage for the Finance Committee hearings. And the reason it's important to do it here is that way we will not be doing that kind of stage setting I pulled them just so that we could... Pat, they're all appropriations.

We would pass them to a second reading and then refer them to the finance committee. And those will be fully discussed during finance meetings, so I don't intend to have discussion on those meetings.

So we have a presentation?

Yes, thank you. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, we are very excited to submit the FY27 operating and capital budget tonight, and we're looking forward to the budget hearings. Over the coming two weeks, every year we are looking to make this process more collaborative and very grateful to our two finance co-chairs, Councilor Nolan and Councilor Al-Zubi, for the work that We all did together over the last many months and I think the best way to make these processes more collaborative is the more intentional structures that we have established. So tonight really isn't the beginning of budget hearings or the budget process. We started in the fall of last year as we set the tax rate for the last budget and began discussions on the macroeconomic environment Thank you for joining us.

Council Budget Priorities, ARPA grants, and our response to potential federal cuts. And we've worked really hard over the last six months to also ensure that this budget is becoming more efficient, pursuing both central and departmental level savings. and that has helped us ensure that we are minimizing tax increases during an economic downturn while we're also preserving the ability for us to make the important investments that we know our community needs. We have also continued to improve on transparency to make it clearer and easier to understand what's in the budget. For the first time, we are showing not just full-time positions, but full-time equivalents. and we are capturing both part-time and grant funded positions. There's also an enhanced online interactive version of the budget that you can click through. And so if you're interested in not just flipping through 500 pages of tables, There's a bunch of pie charts and graphs that our new budget system enables.

I want to especially thank the budget and finance team for all the incredible work facilitating this process, putting this document together, navigating the new budget system, and especially over the last two weeks. It's always an enormous crunch. Thank you to Director Jennings and the entire team. This is an incredible amount of work, and I just want to recognize we are looking to make these improvements, make these changes every year, and that does create a lot more work as we adapt to those changes. and this year's process has incorporated a lot of that and I'm very grateful. Thank you as well to all of the leadership and staff across departments who've been working hard to pull all of this together over a number of months, including the programmatic changes that have been made and are reflected in these numbers and just putting together all of the content. As I say every year, I really believe the most valuable picture is right up front in the consolidated spending section.

So this budget represents the funding for all that we're able to do as a city. It's more complex than can be boiled down into just one number. or a number of numbers. But in terms of the issues that we're addressing, the programs that we're running, the projects that we're funding, Consolidated spending really does do the best job of showing where we are making investments. So I really want to draw attention to that first introduction section where we've provided the consolidated spending, budget modifications, what's changed from last budget to this budget, Those are some of the easiest to digest tables that really capture a lot of what's happening in this enormous document. So with that, I will turn it over to Director Jennings. He's going to walk through just a very quick overview of the budget process and the budget summary, but as well, more crucially, some of the changes in this document that will help you read this over the coming week.

and we're happy to actually have a little bit of discussion or questions about the document and any of the things that have changed with the new system. So, thank you, Taha.

Thank you, Mr. City Manager, and through you, Madam Mayor, do we have the presentation that we can put up on the screen? While we're waiting, I'll just kind of briefly say that the intention of this presentation is really to provide some context. to the FY27 submitted budget and really help serve as a reminder to how we arrived at this point at budget submission.

In particular, as the City Manager mentioned, through a number of engagement efforts with Council as well as the broader community, setting targets for budget growth and the tax levy increase required to support That budget growth, you could go right on to the next slide. Thanks. And strategies taken at both the city and department level to meet those targets that we set. As the city manager mentioned, this year we're using a new budget system for the first time. And there are some key changes to how the book is organized and laid out that I'll go over. Next slide, please. So for most of us, as was mentioned, the FY27 budget process actually began back in fall of 2025.

and since then there have been several meetings as well as planning and analysis and preparation in regards to the FY27 budget. We are now, you can see the red line right in the middle of the screen, at budget submission. Which is a key step, but not necessarily the final step in the overall budget process. We do anticipate, hopefully the city council will adopt the budget on June 1st. FY27 actually begins on July 1. And the tax rate required to support the budget is officially set in the fall. So there are still a number of steps. that happen as part of the overall FY27 budget process. And it concludes with setting of the tax rate in early fall. Next slide, please.

So as was mentioned, there have been a number of public meetings and discussions, and we're always continuing to try and work to enhance communication and engagement when it comes to the budget. And I think this process has been reflective of that. Several meetings, presentations, and conversations beginning of fall of 2025 to update the Council on some of the challenges presented by the macroeconomic environment, how that impacted planning for the FY27 budget, steps we're taking to address those impacts. as well as efforts to align a budget with council and community priorities. Next slide please. And as we have mentioned I think throughout this process, This budget was really developed in the context of a challenging economic and political environment.

This is really highlighted by falling commercial values, decrease in development activity, weakening economic trends and increased uncertainty, especially due to federal actions and policies. And so we had to think about the budget in the context of all these things going on. Next slide, please. And those issues really have the potential to impact Cambridge in several ways. And some of the key things are a greater dependence on property taxes to support our budget. Pressure on excess levy capacity, which provides important flexibility to raise the needed tax revenue, and an increasing residential tax burden, which does impact our community in real ways. Next slide.

So in order to mitigate these impacts and in coordination with City Council, we had set multi-year targets for budget growth and tax levy increases that would be required to support that budget. And this is important to really protect our ability to continue to be able to do all of the things that make Cambridge such a special place to live, work, and visit. We're not setting the targets just to set targets. We want to maintain our financial strength and flexibility which has allowed us to do so many of the great initiatives that you've seen in not just this budget but in budgets past. Next slide please. And so to meet these targets, and as we noted, several steps were taken at both the city and department level. Departments were asked to identify savings and efficiencies within their operating budgets. out-of-state travel was paused at least through June of 2027.

There was a more resource constrained approach to capital planning. We enlisted the help of a health insurance broker to help identify savings in that area. Next slide, please. So the results of these efforts is a submitted budget that is an increase of 4.1% over the FY26 adopted budget and a projected tax levy increase of 6.9%. Next slide. So within that 4.1% increase, most of the funding is related to the school department budget increase and increases in salary and benefits for staff. As well as some increase in debt service payments.

So you can sell a lot of the budget increase are really somewhat fixed costs related to salaries and benefits, our commitment to the school department. Debt Service, which we need to pay. So it's in these other areas in a lot of cases that departments had to look and find savings. So I do want to acknowledge that. Next slide, please. Again, overall, the school department budget is almost 30% of the city's total operating budget of over a billion dollars. Next slide. This is the second year submitting a budget within the framework of meeting growth targets. You can see for FY26 and FY27 that the operating budget increase was 2%.

Fairly significantly lower than more recent years where we had things like new community safety department, new positions, an extended school day at the schools. UPK funding and significant increases in debt service. And we expect this trend to, we'll monitor closely, but we expect this trend to continue as we, you know, tried to meet our targets in FY28 and beyond. Next slide, please. Property taxes are our most significant source of revenue to support the city's operating budget. And again, with an operating budget of over a billion dollars, that means we have to generate at least that much revenue to support it.

And so in FY27, there's $315.5 million in non-property tax revenue, which means we need to generate over $725 million of property tax revenue to support the budget. The actual levy will be finalized in September when the tax rates are set. Next slide. And just to point out, the percentage of property taxes as a revenue source continues to increase. And what that means is that Budget growth will have a more direct impact on property taxes. So we definitely want to monitor how that connection and work to continue to moderate our budget growth. Next slide.

But as the city manager mentioned, we are still investing in important council and community priorities. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. where city dollars are going related to these particular areas. Next slide. As was also mentioned, the budget and the book that you have in front of you was created using a new budget software system.

It's a more modern system with much more capabilities and tools, both in the back end and creating the budget, but also some forward-facing things as well. And we look forward to continuing to improve the book. and online versions and capabilities as we use the system more and more. Next slide. One key item that is noticeable in the book is a shift from using a full-time position count to calculating full-time equivalencies or FTEs. and what this does is it helps give a fuller picture of the city's workforce. So for example, if there is In the prior year budget, if there was a part-time position, say they worked 25 hours out of the 37 and a half hour work week, they would not show up on the position count. We would only count full-time

Thank you very much. would be counted as a .67 FTE. And so what this says just gives a better sense of the actual workforce in the city by capturing grant and part-time employees And so that's reflected throughout the book. And if you go to the next slide, you see this is an example of how it will look in the book when we're comparing between different budget years. So we have an FY25 actual. Again, that's just the full-time position count as you would see in prior budget books. Same thing with FY26. But for the example I just talked about, For FY27, it would actually show as 5.67. For many departments, it's very straightforward.

Some of the numbers are still exactly the same because they didn't have any part-time positions. Some departments have a lot more part-time positions, so you're going to see a different number between FY26 and FY27. But it is explained throughout the book in Section 2 of the book and also in some of the department pages. Next slide, please. Another key change that's reflected in the book is how departments are grouped and organized. And what we did for FY27 is we Organized departments according to programmatic area. And this more closely reflects the city's overall org structure. and hopefully makes it a little bit more transparent and easy to read and use the budget book to be able to find

The previous organization was something we used more for accounting purposes. We still have that capability when it comes to those needs. But in order to make the book a little bit more user-friendly and readable, it made sense to group the departments according to the nine cabinet areas that we show on the screen. And again, we're also really excited about new and enhanced capabilities in the online version of the budget book. We started implementing some of these features for FY27. We believe there's even more is possible in future years as we really get a chance to work a little bit deeper in the new system and understand the capabilities.

and what some of the demands are for information out there next slide So just some key takeaways. The budget book has a lot of information. I think a good starting point still, and I always mention this, is the city manager's message in section one of the book. just to provide a general overview. I think the rest of Section 1 also, in terms of some of the budget highlights, consolidated spending, significant modifications to the budget that lead to the 4.1% increase, That's very good overall information. The beginning of section two of the book also provides some useful information on how to actually read the book. And that's probably a good thing review as well, especially with some of the changes in organization and layout. Next slide.

And so I think the next steps in the process are hopefully meetings before the Finance Committee, which are scheduled for May 5th, May 6th in the evening for the School Department, May 12th May 14th is a backup date. The staff will coordinate with finance co-chairs to hopefully try and get Questions and potential department polls ahead of time. I think it makes for a more meaningful discussion at the hearings when departments have a chance to understand what some of the questions are and have time to prepare. And again, we anticipate Budget Adoption on Monday, June 1st. And before I conclude, I do also want to recognize and thank some of the key staff involved throughout the process. Of course, the City Manager and Deputy City Manager, Kathy Watkins.

Assistant City Manager for Fiscal Affairs, Claire Spinner, Deputy Finance Director, Michelle Kincaid. I want to thank Leo Camillas from the Strategy Office, Lois Wu, our Manager of Public Investment, and of course the budget team or what I like to refer to them and other people have for me as well, the dream team. Former Deputy Budget Director Angela Alfred, Principal Budget Analyst Daniel Liss, Principal Budget Analyst Joanne Malieski, PB and Engagement Coordinator Melissa Liu, This is the eighth budget I've actually had the opportunity to prepare, and they're always unique. But this year, as the city manager mentioned, it seemed to be A little bit extra layer of challenges and things to consider and things we were asking of departments and on top of that we're learning and implementing a new budget system.

And the amount of extra time and effort that the staff in the budget office willingly put in to make that happen is really what made this possible. So with that, I'd be happy to answer any general questions, but really looking forward to more detailed discussions at the Finance Committee over the next couple of weeks. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go back to Councilor Nolan.

Thank you, thank you, staff. I just want to reiterate, it's a challenging year, and yet pretty much every other municipality in the state we have seen is not in a position where the budgets are actually growing. We are not facing a deficit for this year and having to change things midstream, which many, many cities in the Commonwealth are. to thank, I think, this council, the one area in our lives where we're a little conservative is financial planning, and the city staff who is Director Jennings. is a full complement of people who have worked really hard to continue our growth and at the same time have some growth while we're imposing some kind of fiscal discipline. I just want to remind council that we had through Al-Zubi, and I sent out a request for budget questions. Now that you have this budget book, you can go through it. Those questions would be really helpful to have in by this Friday.

May 1st is the deadline. and going through and asking any of the questions related to any department is exactly what we need is what department you intend to pull, what questions you would like answered And just a reminder that the questions should be about the budget. If there are questions about operations or non-budget related questions, that's great. Just don't have them, they will not be answered and should not really be brought up in the context of our finance committee meeting. Those are really focused on the finance and the budget. What's in the budget book includes objectives and measures that are the ones that will be used to measure the effectiveness of the budget, and those are appropriate questions. I think that's it. So I look forward to the discussions. I very much thank the staff and also look forward to all of us.

Again, what we need from you by Friday is what departments you want to pull so that the staff can prepare and any questions that you might ask so that they can be better prepared to answer them.

Any other questions on this presentation?

Councilor Flaherty. Through you, Madam Mayor. Just one quick question. When I'm reading this and I'm looking at the full-time equivalent Thank you very much. Full-time equivalency positions are part-time as opposed to full-time, or is it just the final number?

Through you, Madam Mayor, and trying to understand your question. So I think there is a comparison for departments. Department by department, but there's no one line that says for library, these are... all part-time positions. It's a number. We can explain it for sure if there's a question about any of the departments or the changes, like where this is made up of This many full-time positions, this many part-time positions are now included in that count, and that's how you get a decimal point. So I think we have that information available if needed.

Got it, but it's not included in the budget. That's for clarity. Yes, if I need it, I can get it, but it's not in the book, I guess is my question.

No, not in the book. It is available, though, in the personnel sheets and the budget backup, which is provided to counselors. So there is a detailed listing of that.

Excellent. Thank you very much. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I don't know if congrats is the right word, but I did want to say it's notable that we have our first billion-dollar budget. That's a pretty big change from when I started. I guess the only real question I had was that just for high-level takeaways, I saw that we had an overall increase in the budget about 7%. The cost of living adjustment, even though most of our pay is in salaries, it was only 2.5%. And so is it that, oh, just a tax levy increase was 7%, not the overall budget increase. So that's why the COLA is smaller. And then I guess the biggest single expense increase was the health care. And I've been hearing, you know, I think the city manager say that we were two years behind Michelle Wu, at least on a screenshot. Some speech. And so I just was wondering for a little bit of that context and just how you feel the budget is going to the future.

City Manager?

Sure. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes, I think Vice Mayor Azeem. being two years behind Boston is mostly in reference to the commercial residential tax shift and so some of the challenges that Thank you. Thank you. not every community has that I think you have to have enough commercial to actually set separate tax rates and the max shift is 175%. And so once you reach that, then more of the burden of tax rate increases ends up on the residential side. and that gets exacerbated even more and we experienced some of this in the fall. Boston is experiencing this to a greater extent but when the valuations are changing the tax rates will have a disproportionate impact and so

Thank you. as commercial values go down the commercial tax rate if it stays flat commercial taxes overall will actually not increase that much and so on. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. more of that burden onto commercial and we'll end up seeing a much higher residential tax rate as a result of that.

Whisper?

That's all from me. Thank you.

Other questions on this before we go on? Yes, city manager.

Just one additional note I wanted to just get in front of the city council is when you're looking through within the department budgets, What we're showing, and this is by state law, is an FY25 actual, an FY26 budget, and an FY27 budget. And because I think this question came up a lot in last year's budget, What I wanted to call out is one of the big changes we made Thank you. Thank you. It looks like the salaries and wages number goes down a lot between FY25 actual and FY26 budget. That's because we shifted a lot of

Thank you. So if you're looking for where all that money went, it's on page 294 in employee benefits, where if you look at FY25, we were at $19 million, and then FY26, it went up to $139 million. It makes it a little harder to compare salaries and wages between 25 and 26, but the 26 to 27 budget to budget is probably where I would focus in terms of apples to apples changes.

Any questions? Oh, yes, Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, to the chair. To Mr. Jennings, I want to thank you for that presentation. It was very helpful. Having read, we got the budget, the excuse me, the city manager's agenda on Thursday and reading through the Thank you so much for joining us. in the last term that gave us an overview of the fiscal picture without seeing more detail. I was concerned about the balance between where we are and where we need to be from a fiscal perspective. So I really did appreciate the presentation and knowing that the budget book is now available to us. So you can see that detail. I just want to urge us as we continue with this budget journey that we continue to engage the community. It was very important that we had those early budget roundtables and then and you called it something different.

I can't remember what it was called, but it was very important to have the opportunity for the community to lean in and get a better sense of what we were doing, why we were doing it, where the money was, where it was coming from, those kinds of things. and so I just wanted to acknowledge the work that's gone into it because I've got a better sense and I will restart to review the budget book I thought it was worth saying because I was a bit concerned when I read the agenda not having been able to see a little bit more specificity. So with that, I just wanted to acknowledge that. I'll come off the ledge and I look forward to having further budget conversations over the next few days.

I yield the floor. Acknowledging the city team, I want to acknowledge the finance coaches as well. There have been a lot of meetings. There's going to be more meetings, so I appreciate the... You all keeping us on track because it's always fun to be in those day-long budget hearings. So we look forward to that. We have a few votes in front of us. The first one will be to refer this communication to the Finance Committee. So let's go ahead and do a roll call on that.

Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Siddiqui. Yes. Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

City Manager agenda item number one is referred. So now we have the appropriation orders themselves. The next step on these is to pass them to a second reading and refer to Finance Committee, but before that, Councilor Nolan?

Yep, and this would be for items 2 through 13.

Any questions on that? Yes, Councilor Flaherty.

Well, through you, Madam Mayor, I guess for purposes of discussion, we're going to do this at the Finance Committee of the budget hearings.

Nolan. Thank you, yes, and thanks for the question. This is your first time going through this. Yes, what will happen is we are passing them to a second reading since they're loan authorizations. It means we will have to take another vote on them. by passing them to a second reading tonight they are then referred to finance committee all of these loan orders will be discussed in the Thank you very much. And then from there, they will be referred back to the full council for adoption. If that answers your question through Mayor Siddiqui to Councilor Flaherty. Councilor Flaherty?

Excellent.

Any other comments on this before we do a roll call on city manager agenda items number 2 through 14? 13. Hearing none.

Al-Zubi, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Flaherty, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Nolan, Councilor Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Those items have been passed to a second reading and referred to the Finance Committee. We'll go to City Manager Agenda Item Number... 14. This is the communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, city manager relative to the waiting report item number 26-20 regarding a report on major capital initiatives at or above $15 million for the period from FY21 to FY26. Councilor Nolan?

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I just wanted to... This agenda item is to accept the report. I think it might make sense for this also to the Finance Committee... and we might not want to discuss this in depth tonight but it's a really good in-depth report and it goes a long way to identifying the large capital Zuzi, I'm not sure if she wants to speak to this. and it shows how staff prioritizes cash flow and appropriation requests over time so it I think it's been really good to have this report because it breaks it up to project-based spending like there's a separate page on the firehouse there's separate pages on Mass F4, and ongoing spending initiatives like the municipal facilities improvement plan. It's really important. We've always asked about this, and the policy order then led to this report.

I do think, as we said, or at least hopefully it was conveyed in a meeting that I had to miss for something, which was the city staff was very good about previewing this. interested in trying to break down some of this data more by project type. For example, put all the sewer separation together. There may be three or four now. There's the streets initiatives. Let's make sure we just have a summary. and also make sure that we have the full five and ten year budgets for all those. But again, it's a terrific start so that we can all understand this and love to refer this also to the Finance Committee because then it will be before us if we so choose to use it unless want to have a separate meeting on this. Thank you.

I yield.

Thank you through you, Mayor Siddiqui. I also just wanted to thank the Finance Committee and the whole city staff for the budget book. and for this document that we had requested. These are very big numbers and what I've learned is it requires an exercise in trust, right? I know you're doing a great job and We're grateful to you. I thank you for breaking down costs. I hope that some costs will be broken down even more, like the cost of Carl Baron Plaza. People have asked for ages for the true cost of the bike lanes. And we did have a little bit of a pre-meeting. And I think later on, I think we should talk a little bit about I know project costs grow as we get closer to actually doing the projects, the budgets become more clear.

But many residents have reached out to us and there are concerns in project growth, cost growth, like with Linear Park as of October of last year. Leninger Park was going to cost $7.2 million to $7.8 million. And now with the new street path, it'll be $16 million. So that's a big jump. And then with Gold Star Mothers Park. In November of 25 we were told the whole project would be 10 million and now it'll be 14 million plus a million for design. with the First Street Garage. I know we were talking about a few million and now we're up to 10 million. So I look forward to further more in-depth conversations about... like how those numbers really grew.

I appreciate your work heartily and I feel very lucky that you're leading us. But for the sake of transparency, I think it'll be important to share. With all of us, why these numbers grow so exponentially. It's not just a matter of... $500 here, $500 there, even $1500 or $15,000, but sometimes budgets are doubling in millions. So we're eager to hear more as we enter broader conversations. Thank you. Yes, city manager.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I think we can probably clarify some of those, Councilor Zusy, just to clarify at least one of those. I think on page three of the report, The $16 million is not just for Linear Park. It includes Linear Park and Danahy New Street Path. Thank you. Thank you. remains, I think, about seven, seven and a half million dollars.

Yeah, through you, Mayor Siddiqui. One thing, and I think this report is helpful, and I think, again, shout out to Lois Wu, who has joined the team recently and you know one of the things we've really worked on is trying to understand how to be more transparent about the information and the process and so I think you know pulling this information together really even just sort of graphically looking at the information is much more useful and so Lois did a lot of work on pulling that information together. And as we're thinking about the updated budget system and thinking about updated financial systems, really thinking about How do we share this information more transparently? And so we don't have the perfect systems to do that. I think this is a continued work in progress and this is one piece of that. But I think this report does a really nice job of sort of saying like,

These are the programs, and we talked about programs and projects that have been over $15 million over that six-year period, and so it really goes into details on those. And so I hope it is sort of part of that. How do we continue to show more transparency, show a fuller picture? You know, sometimes the cost estimates are challenging. Like with Gold Star Mother's Park, when we first raised that issue, there are so many unknowns. We're coming to council and sharing information as soon as we can, but that often means we don't have all of the details and we don't know what the final numbers are going to be, and that continues to be the case. However, we want to start sharing information as soon as we can with folks Thank you very much.

When we came forward with the $1 million free cash appropriation to really be able to move forward on the design to then follow up on the construction. And it is true that as projects are defined and more of those unknowns are known, We get better cost estimates. And so sometimes that means projects increase. Sometimes that means projects decrease. Like if you look at Mass Ave and Central Square in this year's budget, it has reduced significantly from what we estimated last year. Every year we are trying to go through that process. And the other thing I would say about the capital budget is that when we talked about, had that sort of pre-meeting about the capital budget, we talked about Thank you very much.

The operating budget, and we said, you know, we thought that was going to take a couple years because the project's already lined up in the queue and underway. When you look at the increase in debt service in this year's budget, It actually increased 4.3%. So that was substantially less than what we had estimated last year and is a result of really looking closely at our projects, thinking about the timing of those, thinking about the scope of those, and then also with the low interest rates that we got on the bonds, all of those combined to what I think is a really positive story in terms of the actual increase in that debt service being at 4.3%. which was substantially lower than we thought it was going to be when we had that pre-meeting with the council. So I say all of that in the context of these are very complex projects and they're hard to sort of describe in a paragraph each. It is an effort to really be much more transparent and be sharing that information. So thank you.

Zubi. Yeah, thank you so much. And again, I really appreciate all of your work and I look forward to further discussions. I yield. Councilor Govern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, just quickly, I just wanted to comment and thank you as well. In the last discussion about the overall budget, Councilor Nolan mentioned... Other cities and towns, and I think the Globe reported that there were something like 21 towns that went for Prop 2.5 overrides, of which I think only one passed, and you're looking at these aren't Some of these towns are towns that have money, right? And you look at what's going on in in Brookline and Lexington and Boston and other places that we often compare ourselves to. And so when you look at these capital projects, and I agree with Councilor Zusy in terms of

Thank you very much. I live in Central Square. I am so sick of driving down River Street and being a mess. I know how frustrating construction and that stuff can be. but I would rather live in a community that allocates money to make sure that we have safe water and safe streets and parks and playgrounds Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Other questions or comments on this before we go ahead and move on? Hearing none, we have a motion from Councilor Nolan to refer City Manager Agenda Item Number 14 to the Finance Committee, so we'll go ahead and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes, Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes, Councilor McGovern?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes, Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

City Manager Agenda Item Number 14 is referred. We are going to City Manager Agenda Item Number 15. This is a communication transmitted from Ian Huang, City Manager... Relative to response to awaiting report number 26-23 regarding the Cambridge Preschool Program, this was pulled by Councilor Al-Zubi.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I would love to be able to unpack this in the Human Services and Veterans Committee, so I'll move a motion to refer to committee. so that we can better understand the models that are presented as well as further questions that my colleagues might have about this because this was also an item that was recently voted on as a council priority in the Finance Committee. Okay.

So Councilor Al-Zubi has made a motion to refer this communication to the Human Services and Veterans for further discussion. So I'll still go to my colleagues in case they have comments on this. Councilor Nolan.

Thank you. Yes, I agree. This is a really important report based on some of the work that we're doing. And as Councilor Al-Zubi just said, it's one of the three priorities for the council. So we do want to move forward. Any other comments from my colleagues?

I'll just briefly say I think the response was really thorough and I think there's a lot of, to Councilor Al-Zubi's point and Councillor Nolan's point, Thank you. Really policy-related. It's all policy-related, but whether that's the city child working group to perhaps... Continuing the working group that we had with the school committee in the past and the city council. Thank you. Everyone working together on this, so thank you.

So we'll go ahead and do a roll call on referring city manager agenda item 15 to the Human Services and Veterans Committee.

Al-Zubi, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Flaherty, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Nolan, Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

City Manager Agenda Item 15 is referred. We will move on to City Manager Agenda Item Number 19. This is a communication transmitted from Ian Huang, City Manager, relative to Peace Commission appointments. Councilor Nolan, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I just pulled one. There are several other appointments to multi-member bodies that we passed tonight. And I think the question here is, Broad, but also specific to the Peace Commission, of understanding this council and the city, and we've talked a lot about considering how to Thank you very much. on the agendas that are set forward and in particular given that the Peace Commission has had a change of structure and leadership and also the Peace Commission was established at a time and its whole founding was a completely different time of where we are now. So the question through you, Mayor Siddiqui, to either the city manager or the team is where are we in the process of

that look at how to consider streamlining, consolidating, and coordinating changes in the existence of many of these multi-member bodies.

City Manager? Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. Thank you for the question, Councilor Nolan. You know, I think I was excited to see These reappointments and new individuals who are looking forward to being part of the Peace Commission, I think it's a great question in terms of the original purpose of the Peace Commission and Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. What to continue to pick up. So maybe I'll turn it over to Executive Director Anwar to share some thoughts, but I know in the report, We've also seen certainly in the last year more interest in the sister city relationships. And that's actually an area where the Peace Commission historically had had a role, but then it really kind of fell away during COVID because people weren't traveling.

And so I think there are ideas like that that we're working through, but I'll have Executive Director Anwar share a little bit more. And thank you for the discussion.

Through you, Madam Mayor, Councillor Nolan, thank you for that question. I think we're in a sort of like a crossroad, or I will prelude. The conversation by saying that we're having like a chicken or the egg which comes first problem. We do want to badly update the ordinance but in order to do that, We need members. So we are trying to onboard members and you might have noticed in the ordinance it says we have to have up to 20. I'm not interested in appointing 20. That's a lot. So I'm hoping to appoint or bring you to the City Council for consideration 13 members. with an interest in recruiting potentially two high school students to be part of this commission and then later in summer into early fall. do an extensive community outreach which can then inform

Whatever scope of work should be keeping in mind that we do have a very outdated ordinance and then bring a proposal to the City Council to update the ordinance.

Councillor Nolan?

Thank you, that's great. I would hope that the council's involved in those discussions since the council is actually the one that did the ordinance in the first place, so I think it should be... I hope it's a collaborative process and I'm glad to hear that it would include the community as well. I think the broader question is and again this is where I only pulled the Peace Commission but it's in the context of we have had a discussion about the entire multi-member bodies not just what Director Anwar is but it's really important as we Thank you very much. It's great to have the members in order to discuss this. You don't need members to discuss an ordinance because that can happen just in council or in a community, but it certainly would be great to have people who are interested in the topic to be discussing it. And then, of course, since it's an ordinance, it would

It would behoove all of us to ensure that the larger community and also the council is involved. So I look forward to not just this commission but others, and I hope that through you, Mayor Siddiqui, that the city manager is working on that larger project. Thank you. I yield. Thanks for watching!

And through you, Mayor Siddiqui, yes, I think this is more like a timing thing that we wanted to bring forward some new members that can help us begin this work, but I think this actually is a nice illustration of where we're trying to both engage with existing members of commissions. Some commissions don't have enough members or just because terms are up, there's a need to actually do reappointments or new appointments. and then we are putting together a set of work that will bring to the council that will paint a bigger picture of all of our boards and commissions and how we're going to prioritize and talk about which of these which ordinances it makes sense for us to review. And also, as you're noting, Councilor Nolan, to have some role for the council in that whole process.

Any other questions? Yes, Councilor Zusy.

Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. I just wanted to echo Councilor Nolan's comments because I think it is, once you... Once you put people on a committee, there's an inherent desire for the committee to continue, right? So it would make sense to have a conversation and come to a conclusion about what we want to do with the committees before you people the committees. Thank you.

Hearing no one else on this, we'll go ahead and do a roll call on proving and placing the communication number 19 on file.

Al-Zubi, Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem, Yes, Councilor Flaherty, Yes, Councilor McGovern, Yes, Councilor Nolan, Yes, Councilor Simmons, Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Yes, Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

City Manager Agenda 19 is approved and placed on file. We'll go to City Manager Agenda Item 23. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to a Mass Ave. active use zoning petition. What the council needs to do here is adopt this as a city council zoning petition and refer to the planning board and ordinance committee for a hearing and report. Do my colleagues have questions? Yes, Councilor McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I just want to also remind, because we did hear a few comments from the Redevelopment Authority tonight. And I don't know if I missed their previous comments or if this sounded like the first night I heard about the, I think is the, so. But just to remind folks of the process, As you said, Madam Mayor, this is going to refer to the Planning Board into ordinance. And so there can be additional changes and amendments once we get to that point. If people are concerned about what the Redevelopment Authority said today, since it's new information, there will be time to address those concerns and those questions. I will vote to forward both this and the other petition.

I just wanted to make note that this is now the second project. that we've heard of this in the Winter Street project where if we required first floor retail they would not be able to proceed and we've not had yet a project on the other way where we feel like it would be dramatically improved with this requirement. and so I just wanted to note that. And in particular, the CRA is a public agency that's trying to build middle income and low income housing, home ownership opportunities And they're not able to fit all of that and the other things that we're asking them to do on a single lot. And I think that's just something for us to reflect on. Thank you.

I think to that point I would ask the CDD to kind of review the comments from the redevelopment. They're asking us to consider some modifications to the Thank you. Thank you. Make sure those conversations have happened. So thank you for doing that in advance. Yes, Councilor Zusy.

I just wanted to mention, so in reading the proposals, it did say that there would be an option for people to opt out of first floor retail, right? They can get a special permit and There's an option to be released of that requirement already in the zoning, isn't there?

Director Roberts?

Thank you. I'll never figure out this, Mike. Through the mayor to Councilor Zusy. Yes, that's correct. The idea with this zoning is that the height would be based on whether or not active uses are provided at the ground floor. So on Mass Ave in the area where the council had originally adopted the Mass Ave zoning. The heights could only go up to four stories. Thank you very much. Allow for some modification in case some of the more specific requirements are difficult to meet. But if it was...

We talked about this at the last hearing, but one of the concerns about having just a complete special permit waiver is it could Thank you very much. and I think if there were waivers or exemptions or other kind of alterations to be considered, One of the key considerations is what are the criteria for doing that? What are the instances where we think it would be wise to allow that and not allow it? not to have it be just a kind of a regular discretionary review that might become the norm rather than the exception.

Councilor Al-Zubi.

Yeah, thank you very much. That really helps. Thank you.

Hearing no one else on this, we can go ahead and do a roll call on adopting this item number 23. as a City Council zoning petition and referring to Planning Board and Ordinance Committee for hearing and report.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We'll move on to City Manager Agenda Item 24. This is a communication transmitted from Yi-An Huang, City Manager, relative to a Cambridge Street active use zoning petition. So this is the same vote procedurally. Any questions on this before we go ahead and vote? Hearing none, we'll go ahead and do a roll call on adopting

Al-Zubi, Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem, Yes, Councilor Flaherty, Yes, Councilor McGovern, Yes, Councilor Nolan, Simmons, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Mayor Siddiqui, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Those two items have been adopted as zoning petitions and referred to Planning Board and Ordinance Committee for hearings and reports. City Manager Agenda Item 25. This is a communication transmitted from Ian Huang, City Manager, relative to a surveillance technology impact report for SMS non-emergency alert notifications requested by the Cambridge Police Department. Zusy, you have the floor.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. So my question was, for what sort of messages What sort of messages, non-emergency messages would you be relaying and I know that I'm overwhelmed by communications and I don't even do social media. I get hundreds of emails, I get texts, I get phone calls, And even before I was on the city council, so I worry that this... Thank you.

Sorry, is that on, Director? Thank you. And I wanted to just, this, I think, I read requested by the Cambridge Police Department, but I think it's the Communications and Community Engagement Department, so there's a typo on this. So go ahead.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor. Yeah, so the intent of this is really to experiment and get a sense of the effectiveness of a non-emergency-based SMS notification system. We would have up to 10,000 text credits, so one text to one person is one credit. And we'd really try to do some hyper-local targeted notifications, a road race. A real impact that this could have had was during the snow emergency parking ban when we were having issues with compliance. and the opportunity we could have had to this when we weren't reaching people effectively through our city communication means this could have been an alternative to that to elevate the outreach a little bit further. Thank you for watching! And we do that through some of our means, but get a sense of if this would be even more effective than what we've done through a next door as an example.

Thank you. Thank you. That's helpful. So you'd be judicious. You wouldn't be spamming everyone. That sounds good. Thank you. Councilor Flaherty.

Through you, Madam Mayor. My question is, when you... Use the SMS non-emergency alert notification. Is there a limitation to how it's used? Like, for instance, could it be used for, you know... Alerting the public about actions that we as this body, the City Council, takes.

Through you, Mayor. So the idea with the pilot really would be a more disciplined approach to get a sense of what would generate the interest, what would create the open rates, be very specific to city programmings and events that would affect residents at that local level. And then from there, you know, to determine a broader strategy, if it were to be effective and to see where else we could scale this, but initially through the pilot would be very hyper-focused.

Flaherty. That's great. Thank you very much. But there's no specific limitation on its use. It could be used for other matters.

Through you, Mayor, it could be used in a broader sense, yes.

Great. Thank you very much.

Other questions? Yes. Councilor Nolan.

Thanks. I know it's just a pilot, I guess, just for 10,000, which is relatively small, but the two questions are, what problem are we trying to solve? And is there any sense that the information gathered here could be requested and used by any entity outside the city?

So I'll start with, through you Mayor, I'll start with what we're trying to solve and really The fact that our residents, our community receives information in so many different ways and has preferences for so many different ways and the fact that we do have limitations in terms of how we can reach people at that hyper level. So that is the problem we're trying to solve and see if this is a solution to address that. I would say that's the first part. I know on the second part I'll turn it over to Solicitor Baer.

Thank you, through you, Madam Mayor. And I also have Assistant City Solicitor, Sydney Wright, who might jump in if I miss anything. on the Zoom. But I do think it's possible we could get a public records request, just like we do for any number of city records. Some of this information is already public through the election commission, the voter registration information. You can get people's addresses and names. Here where it's then also matching with phone number. Phone numbers are exempt under the public records law, so those would be redacted, or phone numbers, maybe not in every situation, but residents' phone numbers This type of documentation would likely be exempt, so we would likely redact all of that information. And I'm not sure what else, if any other information is captured.

Yeah, the primary information that we would receive if someone were to opt in would be the name, the phone number, and the address. and then the resident could correspond with our office in the event that they had any corresponding questions or inquiries related to the information that we push out at that hyper level.

Councilor Nolan.

Thanks. Given that later on tonight we'll probably be ordaining our welcoming city ordinance to ensure that certain information is not shared across anyone, I think part of it is... I don't know how this could be used by someone outside of the city, but again, I think it's important we bear that in mind to ensure that that would not happen, especially if it's Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Ordinance precisely for this reason. And I would expect and hope that those questions are answered before we move further along with this. Thank you, Mayor Siddiqui. Councilor McGovern?

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Mayor. Just through you, I want to say I think this is kind of exciting that we've talked before about how we can expand ways in which to communicate with residents. So often when meetings happen and decisions get made, we hear from folks who say, I never got the mailing or I didn't see the thing on my door. So another way to notify folks of things that are meetings and important events that are happening in their neighborhood. I agree. Thank you very much. Here's another tool to enhance that communication, and so I'm excited to see how it works. So I just wanted to thank you, and hopefully this goes forward and is successful. Thank you, Madam Mayor.

Hearing no one else on this, we can go ahead and do a roll call on approving and placing this item 25 on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

City Manager Agenda Item Number 25 is approved and placed on file. We now move on to... Policy Orders and Resolutions. It's about 8.36 right now. Pleasure of the City Council on items, on policy orders they'd like to pull. Zuzi? Three, four, and five. Councilor Zuzi is going to pull policy orders four and five.

Did you say three, four, and five?

Did you say three? Okay, three, four, and five. Any others? Hearing none. We'll go ahead and do a roll call on adopting the balance of policy order number one and policy order number two.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Councilor Simmons. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui? Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Those two policy orders have been adopted. We're going to policy order number three, that the City Council encourage MassDOT to implement infrastructure improvements to Museum Way and Charles River Dam Road Intersection. This is filed by Councilor Zusy, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, Councilor Nolan, and Vice Mayor Azeem. Councilor Zusy, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Mayor. I hope you all will support this tonight. I think it's a no-brainer. This is the scariest intersection I've ever experienced. It's next to the Museum of Science parking lot. where cyclists, pedestrians, and drivers, including duck boats, all get the green light at the same time. So they all think they have the right of way. And none of them have the right of way. And Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler and I were there at the site with our incredible aides. We saw screaming runners, pedestrians trying to take their children to preschool. Down Museum Way almost getting hit. The box was blocked. We saw cyclists and pedestrians almost getting run over by cars. It's a terrible, terrible intersection.

Sadly, Meng Jin lost her life at this intersection in 2018 and MassDOT did make improvements. but they just don't work. This is a mass dot asset, as Jeff Parenti says, that we need to work collaboratively to get fixed as soon as possible. I wanted to thank my aide, Natalie Sandoval, for her incredible work on improving this intersection, and also thank Cambridge's Assistant Commissioner for Street Safety, Jeff Parenti, and the Cambridge Bicycle Safety Committee all for their good ideas for improving the intersection. A few weeks ago, we all met with staff at Education First and at Holt College. and together we developed some recommendations for how to improve the intersection.

Some of the short-term improvements are listed in the policy order. But we're also eager for MassDOT to contemplate some larger changes to improve safety, as is this intersection is really a death trap. and especially as more and more bikes are on the road and the duck boats are diving in and out of the river because they enter the river at Museum Way. So please support this today. Thank you so much.

Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. As Councilor Zusy noted, I've been to multiple state visits with city staff, members of Zusy's office set up the first one a couple months ago now and we still had snow on the ground. Thank you in particular to Jeff Parenti, who's been there from the city for multiple reasons, done a lot of work on this already. Just in the short time we were there, these couple site visits, there were some really terrifying and near misses, a lot of angry folks in cars, bikes, pedestrians, just not working well for anyone. I think part of the challenge, as Councilor Zusy mentioned, is that the state government has jurisdiction of the road here, but city staff and lots of folks from Cambridge have been doing a lot of advocacy to try to improve this before someone gets killed or seriously injured. and the future here so hopefully we can make improvements that I go back.

Other comments on this? Hearing none, on a roll call by, I'm on a motion by Councilor Zusy to adopt policy order number three. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern?

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Councilor Simmons.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Policy order number three is adopted. We are going to go to policy order number four. That the city manager is requested to direct appropriate departments to develop an accessible neighbor's guide to the M... FH Ordinance, Multifamily Housing Ordinance. This is filed by Councilor Zusy, Councilor Nolan, myself, and Councilor Flaherty. Councilor Zusy, you have the floor.

Thank you so much, Madam Mayor. If you've seen the list that I've crowdsourced, you'll know that there are over 80 multifamily housing projects in play all over the city. and another 30 that will be happening very soon. Because there are not clear guidelines or an outline of the development and permitting process online, residents are freaking out. They're frantically calling inspectional services, the historical commission. I assume they're calling CDD. They're definitely calling the city councilors, seeking answers to questions about the process. It's essential that this information is posted somewhere on the city website just for the sake of transparency. This is in fairness to our residents.

and also because it's such a waste of time for city staff and counselors too. Of course we want to hear from constituents but over the past week Good governance requires transparency and clarity about process. The proposed neighbor's guide to the multifamily housing ordinance would provide this by June 30th, and I hope sooner for all of our sakes.

We'll go to Council Member McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. So, you know, I don't think this is a fine idea. I do think, and I don't know if Assistant Manager Peters wants to... Is that okay, Mr. Manager? Okay. So I believe that some of this information already exists on your website, but I will admit you do have to do a fair amount of digging to find it, which... Some people won't do that. You do have some of this information available now. Can we move that to the front?

Thank you very much.

providing more accessible, clear data. So we're happy to repackage it, add any additional information to help with clarification and get it in a more prominent spot on our website.

And one thing I think, Madam Mayor, through you, One thing to possibly include, I think there's a lot of confusion around affordability, quote-unquote, and how we talk about that. There's lots of different ways to look at The word affordable and the definition when it comes to housing. So one way is if you spend 30% or less of your income Thank you very much. So you look at what's going on now in some cases where prior to the multifamily housing ordinance, a developer might have built a large,

McMansion, people were sort of using that term in the back of a house or in a backyard that sold for $3 million. And now after multifamily housing, they're building 5 townhouses that might sell at $1.8 million. That's another way to look at affordability. A $1.8 million townhouse is more affordable than a $3 million single family. And then obviously another way is Thank you very much. to me, and I think in general, it was not mostly about affordable housing in terms of subsidized housing, low income housing. We talked about inclusionary units that would be created, and that's good, but the primary

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. really what the multifamily housing was. That wasn't the main goal of the multifamily housing. So I think trying to, you know, in this and trying to explain those definitions and doing almost like a mini housing 101 is important because I think we have to We get confused and we use these things interchangeably and it's hard to have an apples to apples conversation. So beyond the kind of bullet points of the zoning and the setbacks and this and that, I think

talking about what the goal of this is, why it was done, and sort of educating people on the purpose would be important. And I will yield.

I have Vice Mayor Azeem and then Councilor Flaherty.

I was just going to make a quick point, which is that I think it might be helpful to frame this as like there's a development happening near you. What does the process look like? What is your ability to make public comment? just because I think this is very minutiae. I think in general this is a great idea. I also had a bunch of calls this morning about this sort of thing. But, you know, just technically, like, A bunch of developments are happening because of the multi-family housing ordinance. A bunch of developments are happening because of Northern Mass Ave zoning and Cambridge Street zoning and a bunch of developments are happening because of the affordable housing overlay. And I think that In general, it's just helpful for people to have a place of like, their specific actual question is like, there's a development happening near me. What can I do? What does the process look like? And it might change slightly depending on it. But it's like, I don't think that It's specifically what zoning amendment made it, but, you know, it's like there's a development happening. So that was just like a small technical point I just wanted to bring up. Thank you.

Councilor Flaherty and then Councilor Nolan.

And through you, Madam Mayor. These are helpful suggestions. And I think the confusion that I've experienced in speaking with residents of my neighborhood and other neighborhoods throughout the city is that there is no public comment. There's just simply a neighborhood notification meeting. which is really ill-equipped to deal with residents who've got significant questions about proposals that are being built in their neighborhoods. Everything from setbacks to parking to size to density. Thank you very much. but these are significant developments that are happening, popping up all around neighborhoods that are having massive impacts on residents' lives. And they wanna know. They wanna know what's happening.

Where do I have an opportunity to attempt to at least to influence decisions that are being made that impact I can tell you from my perspective As city councilor, it's been very frustrating trying to answer the questions because the multifamily housing zoning ordinance is complex. It is complicated. And even as a lawyer by trade, there's not everything about it that I understand. And it's as, I think, as important to maybe have a diagram, a flow chart, identifying the different steps in a developer's plan to get from point A to a building permit as it is to give timelines,

All of that information because it really is, I can tell you, this as of right development with any lack of public input is causing enormous frustration. and confusion and uncertainty all throughout the city and in my own neighborhood. It's... It's at epic proportions, I'll say. So whatever you can do. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

And again, not to go on and on and on about this, but in knocking doors, there's a significant... Thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. So to the extent that anybody has any questions about it, I think it's very important to have this done as quickly as we can. Thank you, and I yield. But thank you for your efforts, and thanks for bringing the policy in.

I'll go to Councilor Nolan and then to your assistants in Azure.

Thank you. I agree. It's really important to have this because if we all get questions or if neighbors ask neighbors, it's really important that we understand the roles. I think it is for clarity. It's for transparency. It's for information. Some people will not be happy to have the answers, but at least they'll have the answers in no, meaning they won't be happy to know I have had several neighbors. What do you mean? I can't even say anything about this? I can't change anything? It's all as of right is the concept. But we need to communicate that and make sure what's as of right, what's not as of right, what are the requirements. I'll say a couple things. This is about multifamily zoning, which is important. As was pointed out, there's also other developments that happen. It would be really helpful for folks to have answers to those questions as well. Two things, or three things. We are in the process of doing some streamlining. It would also be really good to do as much streamlining as we can so that someone who understands what the requirements are here

doesn't then find out, oh no, we had to change that because of some other ordinance we had. I hope that moves forward very quickly. All plans should be available online. Right now we don't have them. It isn't until you get a building permit. All plans are submitted online. sent his draft. There is no reason from a technical point of view. I've talked to our technical staff and ISD said it's certainly possible as long as we say, hey, this is in process. This may not be final, but it's really... Thank you for joining us. This is exactly the kind of thing. We have co-pilot. The city is looking at it. I'm still waiting for that chat box on our front page of our website to have it be available to all users to come forward and say, would be a perfect answer.

But short of that, at least, this could be done really quickly with the powerful tools of large language models and AI. So I hope that's happened and it's long before June 30th that we get the response. Thank you. I yield.

Is this a manager?

Yeah, thank you. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. So, yeah, absolutely. I was going to add that, you know, in addition to providing more information about the multifamily zoning ordinance. We are going through a robust process of reviewing the permitting process and looking for efficiencies and opportunities to be more transparent. already been flagging some of these things and excited to bring that back to you. I did just want to underscore what's been said by Councilor Flaherty and Councilor Nolan that certainly we support more transparency and information sharing. And I know council understands this, but I do want to make it clear to the public and we can convey this more clearly that it isn't as a right permitting process. So even if they have the information, they know the development is happening. Thank you.

I just want to just underscore that there still might be that underlying friction that we have in the community that people can't influence projects that they may not like the outcomes of.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I think this is great, and I think ultimately getting more information out, and I agree with Assistant City Manager Peters, that having it more clear what voice people have given the ordinance is going to actually be important. It may not actually help people with a sense of frustration if the challenge is actually that these are developments that are as of right under the new zoning. But I do think it gives more clarity. I will say I was just checking and I think there is A bit of how we're thinking about the website and what we put up front and how people can find some of this information more clearly during the actual... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

So in sort of late November 2024, there's an FAQ posted. You have to click through a couple of pages to get there, but there's 78 questions as we are. Debating what was going to go into the multifamily housing ordinance, and I do think this is a good starting point. We'll work through what questions I think people are asking today, and we can probably expand on this a little bit. But I do think an updated list, now that the ordinance is actually passed, is important, and we can find a more prominent place to post it.

Yes, Councilor Zusy? I just wanted to clarify, I think it needs to be two lists. So maybe there would be one on the CDD website and maybe they'd link to one another, but the other might be on the ISD list because a lot of the lists are practical ones like Well, I know the building next door is going to be demolished, but how will I be notified and when? I mean, there's things that specific. I'm hearing a lot of people are getting notices of demolitions the next day. And so what is the developer's responsibility in notifying? And then, yeah, they're eager to understand when they can have access to plans. So it's like there's a loss of control. So it would be good for people to know when they have access to plans and where and how they can access plans and how that relates to the community meeting and how that relates to when a project is permitted.

So those things might be more, you know, again, it seems like you'd go both to inspectional services and CDD, but I feel like on the CDD website what I'd really want to see would be... What does this ordinance mean? Like maybe for me, but then, and then more specifically, yeah, what is the process with the building permit and how will I be notified of various things? So there's sort of two things, they're related, but. So anyway, I look forward to your creating this, and I think it will relieve a lot of frustration. Thank you so much.

It's 9 p.m. now, so we will go ahead, if there's no other comments, and do a roll call on adopting the order.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes, Councilor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes, and you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

Policy order number four is adopted. We're going to policy number five, that the city manager is requested to work with relevant staff to explore options for commissioning a housing needs study Zuzi, and Councilor Flaherty. Councilor Zuzi, you have the floor.

Thank you so much. And again, Councilor Siddiqui and Chief of Staff Lee. Thank you. Thank you so much for your help with this. In 2019, the Metropolitan Area Planning Council provided the 12,500 number 2030 goal for our city plan, Envision Cambridge. Since then, almost a decade later, much has changed. We had a pandemic. There have been supply chain issues. Inflation, higher costs to build, higher interest rates, and then the Trump administration's cuts to science funding, taxes on our university endowments. Restricting foreign workers and limiting visas for foreign workers and more.

These things, accumulatively, have challenged our economic lifeblood, our universities, research institutions, and life science industry, creating housing vacancies and slowing housing production. The idea of our doing a housing needs study is inspired in part by Provincetown having done a housing needs assessment project. So it would analyze our existing housing conditions, resident needs, and come up with measurable housing goals to guide future decision making. In Provincetown, apparently, it has been incredibly helpful because it helped them to inform housing policies. It helped them figure out how they wanted to allocate resources. And it also helped them define how they wanted to use their land.

Thank you. It's not to stymie housing production. It's to think more thoughtfully about who are we building housing for? Are we building housing for young people, young families, for our elderly, for our workers? for biotech workers. Who do we want to house the most? And then we have finite resources. So this coming year, we'll be spending over $49 million on housing. Where do we want to dedicate that funding? Do we want it to be more for social housing? Do we want it more for affordable housing, completely affordable housing? Do we want to be supporting a community land trust Who are we housing? And we really need to evaluate the vacancy rates.

and think about where are they, what sort of groups those apartments support so that we can really be more strategic about who and what we're building for. So that's the goal of this idea. And community development, I know you're overwhelmed. Thank you for all that you're doing. But the idea would be to outsource this to maybe the UMass Donahue Institute. That's what Providence Town did. Or maybe it would be some other group. But I know you would need to be engaged. Community development would need to be engaged somewhat. But somebody else would be doing the analysis, the writing. but I think this would just be so valuable to us as we go forward. It's been again like almost a decade since we came up with that

It would be good to be looking at that number again, thinking about again, who are we going to prioritize housing? And then we should be really looking at the 2040 number since the world has shifted. Thank you. I yield.

I have Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Al-Zubi, and then Councilor McGovern.

I think that the study is a good idea. I was going to say that I think that it might be worthwhile to get buy-in on the process before we do the study in that We talk about Envision and that 12,500 number, and instead of it being a uniting force where everyone's like, this is a number that we should build towards, what's happened is that If you want more housing to be built, you point that out and you say, oh, we've only built 25% of that to that number. And if you oppose it, you're like, well, actually, that number, this actual part in the process was wrong in the first place. And so I worry that we spend a lot of resources and do the study again and we end up in that same place where we just use it to justify our prior beliefs. And so at least having a process of like, this is how we're going to come up with that number. Here's some methodologies.

and at least it feeling fair to people like before we actually see the results, you know, in a way that, you know, you can never hold us purely intellectually honest in that like the colleagues change and the new people will say like, well, I wasn't there when it happened. But I do think that as much as we can, it is helpful to have some things that everyone agrees on our affair before we see the results of that study. And then secondly, I just wanted to say that I also think that you know I by and large agree with what Councilor Zusy said, is that it's really helpful to understand the current state of the housing, what sort of housing we have, what we don't have, right? There's gaps, like I think that SROs are an undermet need in terms of housing people who are transitioning, you know? Thank you for joining us.

I think we really encouraged two and three bedrooms to be built because we wanted more family-sized units. And you can still say that we want more families in Cambridge, but the practical reality I think that happened is that People who would have preferred to live by themselves instead just got a bunch of roommates and now we have people in their mid-20s and 30s who are living with roommates when they maybe would have preferred by themselves but also it's not like families are necessarily occupying those units. I see that that is the predominant people who have filled those sort of types of units. And so just having some humility about what we can really control and what the effects of what we do are. So that's all I had to say. Thank you.

We have Councilor Al-Zubi, Councilor McGovern, Councilor Zuzi, I'm sorry, Councilor Flaherty, and then Councilor Simmons.

Thank you. Through you, Madam Mayor, I am interested in this, especially the question of housing for whom that Councilor Zusy noted, although I do wish there was more clarity in the policy order on that. and also I believe it needs to contain new information and be focused so this is why I put the motion on the floor to amend the policy order to include and ordered asking CDD to share pros and cons on options as well as share key data gaps because from my understanding as of right now we have A lot of stuff that shares in-depth questions around demographics and affordability, like in our neighborhood statistical profile, which was last updated in 2023. We also have demographic information available from the census. There's also a 2016 report called the Cambridge Housing Profile that's focused on the city's overall housing stock. Maybe a question that we look at is updating this 10 years later.

When it comes to housing demand, from my understanding, we have waiting lists for every type of affordable housing. CHA, just to start, is a few examples. When it comes to reports about housing production, we have a development log from CDD We have an annual report on the AHO. We have data on building permits, again, as a few examples. I want us to be focused and intentional with this if we are to move forward with it. I think maybe a part of the conversation is consolidating what we have. and I also do think we also have to make sure we're talking about how we define affordability, not necessarily just getting the lay of the land. Those are just some of the thoughts after some digging and hope that we can pass this amendment. I'll yield.

So there is an amendment before us, so we can just include that in our discussions. I'll go to Councilor McGovern and then Flaherty and then Councilor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Mayor, through you. Quickly, I appreciate what the Vice Mayor said. I think back to trying to look at who was here when we... Gosh, maybe it was just me and Councilor Simmons when we voted for Envision Cambridge. And I remember at the time, some of the conversation, I think Councilor Toomey brought this up, but I mentioned it, that We're going to go through this whole process and spend however many millions of dollars on this process, and then what we were afraid of is that When the results came out, as the Vice Mayor said, the people who liked the results said, this was the greatest report in the world. This is wonderful. And a lot of the people who were pushing us to do the Envision Cambridge, they were the ones Carlone, and a lot of those folks pushed for it.

And then when the results came out, and they weren't necessarily the results that they liked, they said, oh, this is, we shouldn't pay attention to this. This isn't, you know, The methodology was bad. The number's bad. I really hope we don't... Do that again. And it does sort of worry me that we do these studies and we do these things and then, you know, the people who like what they say think it's great. The people who don't trash it. There is a part of me, having gone through this many times, that that's kind of where we're going to end up at the end of this, and I hope not. I hope I'm wrong about that. I guess my question in this... The order does call for this to be contracted out. I do sometimes take

A little step back when we talk about things like commissioning a qualified research institution. I don't want Thank you very much. In fact, folks who work in our departments in the city are often the outside consultants that other communities turn to for outside advice. I just want to make sure that we're not doing that because we don't trust the people who work for us. But my question is about... Even if you do contract this out, Assistant City Manager, you obviously are still involved and it's still work, additional work for you. You...

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. We can continue to do the things that we've already decided we're going to do.

Thank you. Through you, Mayor. So the work plan we presented was very ambitious and we committed to a lot in a short period of time. I think I'd want to go back and if this were to be passed and talk with the team about when this could get slotted in in that current framework and we come back with here's a realistic schedule of when we could start this. If it was desired that you'd want this to start sooner, I think we'd have to have conversations about priorities and what other work would need to take a backseat while this got prioritized. So happy to take the lead on council on that. We are working full press right now on the current list of priorities that Council gave us.

You know, if what comes back is we have to delay Central Square again or we have to delay the inclusionary reports or any of that other stuff that we're doing, then I wouldn't want to delay any of those things, you know. to have this replace any of those things. And then the other, the ordered says a work plan by June 2026. is that a realistic timeline just given if you are going to contract this out I mean is that going to have to go through an RFP process you have to write it you have to get bids you have to I don't June is City Manager?

I would probably split this out into happy for the council to discuss if there's a vote today we can bring back a more formal response I would separate out The question first of what's the scope of this study and is it going to be useful? And I think that's the first question. And I think the second question would then be how would we resource it and when would we do it? and just to note that ultimately the conversation about scoping does also still take some amount of time and I think we're happy to do that. I share some of the concerns that have been expressed in terms of A housing needs study is going to only be useful if we're actually situating it into something that will turn into a difference in decisions that we're going to make. and so I kind of recognize and Councilor Al-Zubi, I think you did a good job of noting there's a lot of data that we already have.

We are prioritizing it in so many ways. We have been working on housing for seniors, for families, for very low-income individuals, for people who are transitioning out of homelessness. to the extent that the council actually wants us to be pursuing a different mix of that, I think that's actually a worthy conversation. I don't think that running really concrete numbers on those needs is necessarily going to drive that because it's ultimately a values conversation. The reality is across all of those We are short in that the housing costs are really high and there is really high demand across almost all of those programs. I think it's probably more, I would probably be more interested if the council wants to say we fundamentally think that there should be more than we're currently providing for seniors.

Then I think that's actually very helpful guidance and we can bring that to the Affordable Housing Trust. We can have that conversation. I don't actually think the Housing Needs Study is necessarily going to do that in terms of producing a 100-page report. and I think if there's a request for data, we could probably pull that reasonably quickly without the need for like contracting out a study. We have a lot of this information, I think that's already been tracked. Thank you very much. My sense is in many ways, Provincetown was at the beginning of that journey and wanted to do a baseline analysis of like, what does this look like in terms of the existing housing stock and what kind of demand there is out there? That report came out in September 2024. And I think they've used it to then move into discussions of, well, what do we do about this?

And they produce now an annual report on what they've actually been doing. In the last report, Thank you very much. You'll see a lot of similar ideas in terms of generating funding for affordable housing, making those investments. There are some differences in terms of the levers they've pulled, but I think that's the conversation we're already in. which is the work plans that we've been building. So I think I feel a little more in terms of if there's debates about whether the existing work plan is the right work plan, those are the conversations we should have.

I don't know if a significant study that articulates what we already know, that there is significant need, is going to change the decisions of this council or the direction that we're moving in.

Councilor McGovern.

It's funny because I was actually just in Provincetown. And I went into their town hall and just kind of scoped it out. It's a beautiful building. I didn't get to meet with Dan Rubello, who's the assistant city manager down there. We missed each other. Former Cambridge employee. But I did talk to a few people about some of the issues that they're facing and we talked about development. And it's just interesting because We didn't talk specifically about this study, but they went through this study, but they're still, whatever that study recommends and says, they're still going through the same thing where people are They're upset that there are some larger buildings being built in Provincetown that don't fit into Provincetown's typical footprint. And even though they have this study,

We might delay other things. And at the end of the day, if someone is still building a four-story building next to you, you're not going to say, oh, well, the study said that was what we needed, so that's okay. Because you're not going to like it anyway if you don't like it. So I don't know. More information is fine. I don't know at the end of the day how much this is going to help bridge the divide that we seem to have in this conversation, but I'm happy to support it, and hopefully I'll be wrong. Thank you.

We'll go to Councilor Flaherty.

Through you, Madam Mayor, and I'd just like to congratulate all my colleagues for this very thoughtful conversation. And Vice Mayor, Councilor McGovern, the city manager. This is, in my view, really is a discussion about values and what's the future of the city of Cambridge. I mean, it's probably important to assimilate all the data that Councilor Al-Zubi mentioned that we already have at our fingertips so we can have a baseline from which to say, do we or do we not need 12,500 additional units by 2030? And it's important to understand, I think, That this study not only should look at housing needs, not wants, but housing needs, and do an overlay of what the impact of that is on the city.

Ritt Lodge, our services, our schools, our utilities, our water, our sewer, all of that so that we do have some sort of a comprehensive plan. But I think the point is well made that You know, talking as the Vice Mayor mentioned, you know, we've got to have humility and we're talking about Two bedrooms and three bedrooms and families, in my view, and it may just be only my view on this concept, it may not be everyone else's, in my view, to have a sustainable city that's thriving, that lasts. Many generations after everyone in this city council chamber is gone, I think we need families in this city. I mean, that's what a city is. And that's a discussion of values. That's not necessarily a discussion about

Thank you very much. that we all need to think about. The question we need to think about is what's the future of the city of Cambridge? What's the future of the city of Cambridge? And if we can come to that in understanding Then maybe we can move forward. So I yield. Thank you very much.

Councilor Simmons.

To the chair, to the council, I certainly, or to the co-maker. The lead sponsor and co-makers, thank you for bringing this forward. As we know, housing is a number one priority to us as a policymaking body and to the people. that live in the city of Cambridge. There's nothing that has been said that I would not agree with. I thank the vice mayor for his statements and Councilor Al-Zubi. Her follow-up, you know, kind of outlining some of the things that I was thinking about, because the first thing that came to mind when I read it was, what is it that you're trying to figure out? What's the answer? Do we already have this information? and I know we are not shy about hiring consultants and I appreciate the thoughtfulness, Councilor Zusy, that we don't impact our

Community Development Department, Housing Division, because they're already working overtime all the time and every time to fill the needs and the policy initiatives that we already have started. And I clearly don't want anything taken away from this. So this is what I'm going to suggest. I would have preferred that this had gone to the housing committee. I'm not the chair. I don't know. It's something that... Thank you so much. that takes into consideration what my colleagues have already said because you can hear that there is a desire to support a study, but there's a hesitancy as well that we could flesh some of that out I would hope that The lead sponsor might consider sending this to the housing committee to be fleshed out a little bit more based on even what just the city manager has said. Because at the end of the day, even if you hire outside consultant,

that outside consultant in my thinking is going to have to come to the housing division and maybe even to the trust. So with that in mind, I'm going to exercise my charter right.

Simmons exercises her charter right, so we will move on to the calendar and unfinished business. We have a charter right. for the policy order saying that the city manager is requested to direct the Cambridge Department of Transportation and any other relevant departments to halt any Further design, engineering, procurement, or construction activities related to implementing a reconfiguration of Garden Street to restore two-way motor vehicle traffic. Before I go to Councilor Flaherty as the member who exercises Charter Right on this, I want to just Say a few words.

I want to kind of acknowledge the frustration that people have felt in the room and probably those watching from home and what they're feeling. I share the frustration. I think overall the ability to move around safely and fairly is a really important topic and making policy decisions that satisfy all different perspectives is is not always easy. As we talk and continue this discussion, I want to just ask my colleagues and members of the public really just respect each other's perspectives as a body we represent the full community and that means as individual counselors sometimes we're going to have different opinions on what's Thank you.

That doesn't make anyone's views invalid. And I want to just say that there are also different ways to think about precedent here. Some would say and have said revisiting this decision sets the precedent of reversing a prior council vote. Others have said that last year's vote itself reversed a city-led process that included community engagement. So I think it's important to acknowledge both those realities. So with that, I'll pass it to Councilor Flaherty, who exercises charter right.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. As everyone knows, I exercised my charter right two weeks ago. One of the reasons, I did it for many reasons, but I did it, as the mayor mentioned, because I felt as though that Thank you very much. and race judicata, as I mentioned, is a legal principle that is a it's Latin for the term a matter of judge. Once something has been. decided it shouldn't be relitigated for a number of reasons, and I went through that. I won't talk about that now. But more importantly, one of the reasons why I exercised my charter right

I just wouldn't. We've all got busy professional and personal obligations in our lives, and we don't often, at least I don't, pay... Thank you very much. Days since then, I've done some outreach myself in the Garden Street neighborhood to try and determine if people knew about it, did they have an opinion, would they share it with me?

and last weekend, I dropped, I don't know, something like 650 flies around that neighborhood and, you know, Huron, Raymond, Upland, Waka, Bond, Robinson, Bellevue, Madison, all the streets in that neighborhood. And I knocked on I don't know how many doors and I think I got I think the numbers are 258 people spoke to me, maybe 75% preferred the two-way traffic. These are people that lived in that neighborhood. I also had sort of like a QR survey and it was more like The people that responded on the survey were more than 90% in favor of two-way traffic on Garden Street, but I thought it was very important

For me personally and for this body to engage with the people that live in that neighborhood that are most directly impacted by these design configurations. and I thought it was very, very important. I still believe, I firmly believe it's critically important no matter what your opinion is on Garden Street one way or the other that we engage with the residents who live there. and, you know, I listen to everyone here and I fully respect their opinions. And I lived at the bottom of Garden and Concord for 10 years. I know this area very, very well. And as many of you know, I lived in Cambridge my entire life. and rode a bike up and down Garden Street for many years playing baseball at the Old Diamond on Cambridge Common. And Garden Street obviously is calmer and more pleasant now than it has been in the past. But it's not just about God and the street. It's about the street network.

And it's about all the people in that surrounding area. and the traffic and the cut through and most importantly and the paramount concern in all of this has to be safety. So that's the reason why I exercised and I'm glad that we've had the engagement and I'm glad I've learned so much that I've learned about some of the folks that live on those streets and spoke here tonight and a lot of people that didn't speak here tonight how they felt about it and they've got obligations in their life that prevent them from being here today. So I will yield, and I'll let everybody else speak their piece, but thank you, Madam Mayor.

We'll go to Councilor Azeubi, Councilor Nolan, and Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. I know last time this was on the floor, we heard from the city manager and Commissioner McKenna about the support of maintaining a one-way street. I put this on the floor with my colleague for multiple reasons, so I'll go ahead and name a few. First, I don't believe a return to Garden Street to two-way addresses the reasonable concerns that people have around traffic and safety Traffic and Safety on Raymond Street, for example. So I think we do need to address those with intention, and that's part of what this policy order asks for. Second, it would place us in a tougher situation from a loading zone perspective, both logistically and financially. Third, the city's analysis does not support a return to two-way operation. In fact, it indicated that converting Garden Street back to two-way operation would likely increase congestion and delay at key intersections and reduce safety for people walking and biking without necessarily delivering those meaningful reductions in neighborhood cut-through traffic.

And fourth, I worry about going through another reconfiguration that will have a significant cost and would further confuse residents about road direction that could lead to more harm. Any reconfiguration requires adjusting, and that is something that we really need to consider here. To Councilor Flaherty's point on this being bad public policy to revisit this, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree, because from my understanding to an extent, we're revisiting the multifamily zoning ordinance. I believe we should be able to re-explore any work that we've passed that warrants a necessary conversation and I believe this is one of them. At the end of the day, I know it can feel like an eternity sitting and navigating traffic when folks are tired and exhausted from a long day at work, and we got to work on ways to address that. I do think a return to two-way operation would risk undermining those safety improvements while not necessarily resolving the underlying neighborhood traffic concerns. So in other words, We could be back here with the same concerns with the reconfiguration.

So this is why the policy order calls on the city manager and the Department of Transportation to address residents' concerns around traffic calming appropriately. I would welcome co-sponsorship on the floor, and I'll yield.

Nolan, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, and then Councilor McGovern.

Thanks. This is a tough one. I know we spent a lot of time on it, and it's really clear the community is very split. There's not a consensus, and I'm really grateful that, Councilor Flaherty, you went out in the neighborhood and got all that information, that I did not do as extensive a work. However, I did walk the neighborhood. I did speak with people in the neighborhood and overwhelmingly more people there wanted to restore two-way traffic than wanted the one-way. And most of them had not written to council. and had not shown up at a meeting. Even when I asked them and begged them, they just felt, why bother? The city doesn't listen. The very fact that this is being reconsidered says to me, it's not gonna matter. And these are mostly the... A lot of them are working class Cantabrigians who have been here for a long time and have lived firsthand with some of the negative impacts.

And that tracks with the emails we've received of include many who are shocked to hear the council's even considering not honoring the vote to revert to two-way. So when the city first explored Garden Street changes and ended up taking away a travel lane, many residents did not realize such changes were being considered, counter to what some have stated. We did a good job of trying, but it was true, and I was at some of those meetings. It was really clear, palpable in the room, and the city staff bore the brunt of it to say we didn't know about this. I think we've learned since then to do Wilson, who lived there noted that and it's one of the reasons she got involved and tried to figure out whether this made sense. And since the one-way has been in place, many residents have been living with the adverse impacts and want to revert to two-way, which is why this issue was considered unvoted last year.

It wasn't to overturn or to do nefarious or to prioritize one or two It was really to say, hey, we're hearing a lot of information that we didn't know at the time. We installed quick build so we can make a judgment if appropriate. and importantly for all of us concerned about safety, two-way car travel with bi-directional bike lanes is safe. We have the bidirectional bike lane on Brattle, which works well. And of course some people, mostly those on and near Garden or people who use it, like their quieter street. That makes sense. But Garden Street is a public way, and the entire city's impact should be considered. And even if we revert to two-way, it doesn't mean we shouldn't also do the traffic calming on streets overall. The proposed change does include two-way protected bike lanes. Many people I talked to when I explained why I'm fine with it as a cyclist, who uses that route a lot actually,

They didn't understand that it was actually going to continue with protected two-way bike lanes. And when that was explained, they said, well, then fine. Either plan is fine. And note, with a protected bike lane, there won't be cars or trucks stopping in the bike lane. Counter to the fears. So it's important for us to recognize that and let folks know who are afraid of that, that that's not gonna be a safety issue. Now for some, a bidirectional lane is not intuitive, but neither is a contraflow bike lane. At least having both bikes and cars in both directions would signal to drivers and cyclists and pedestrians to look both ways at all times. Another key safety element to consider, by restoring two-way car travel and having a bidirectional bike lane on just one side of the street, the number of intersections where cars cross a bike lane would be cut in half. Under the design for two-way car and bike travel, cars coming from Linnean, Shepherd, Walker, Robinson, Great Gardens will no longer have to cross a bike lane.

That does mean there would be more traffic on the other side, so I'm not suggesting it's just 100% one-way, but it also... is demonstrably true. There would literally be half the number of intersections where a car crosses a bike lane, which is important because we know intersections are where most accidents happen. And the bike lane, at least now at those intersections, is contraflow, which is not intuitive. The data on one-way versus two-way speed is mixed. One-way travel, especially with a wider lane, which is the case now on Garden between Linnean and Huron, tends to allow or encourage faster speeds than a two-way street with narrow lanes of travel. which I see when I bike there as I did today and there was definitely speeding along that section. As for the section from Linnion to Chauncey, when there's two-way travel on a narrow street, car speed is not higher than single speed and might be lower. So when the vote was taken to restore two-way, a major concern was the lack of a delivery loading zone. Thanks to Councilors Wilson, Toner, and Zusy, that issue has been addressed.

A solution found, not perfect, definitely not perfect, but the city wasn't sure it was possible to begin with and then worked closely with Harvard and found a fix. And it's a positive change from what was thought possible. I also say I agree we should be fiscally responsible. $250,000 for this change is money. It's well worth it if it helps the city as a whole, which I believe it does. And it's especially interesting that nobody's saying we shouldn't spend this $250,000. is saying anything at all about the tens of millions of dollars we're spending installing bike lanes in the rest of the city. Spending which I fully support, so I'm not saying we shouldn't do that, but I do think the contrast should be something we might want to consider. And those of us who support the two-way traffic know it won't fix congestion. However, it will, by definition, spread traffic out more. The impact of Garden Street taking away a major route out of the city from Harvard Square to North

led us eventually to installing turn restriction on Linnean and on Brattle. That shows the impact is neighborhood-wide, not just on Raymond. The backup on Huron and Concord, where I live and see daily, is evidence how the traffic impact flows over into a wide area. I certainly understand this council is different, and yet I still come back to undoing this vote should only be done for good reason, and I don't see any good reason or new information here. The new information, like the loading zone, is actually positive. We should remain focused on the more dangerous parts of travel by bike, the part of Garden Street beyond Huron with no bike lane. And I hope we vote not to reverse our vote and instead get to work on issues of consequence, enforcement, public education. Managing e-scooters, other micro-mobility, red light traffic camera enforcement, those are all really important issues for us to move forward.

understand that the, and I agree with Mayor Siddiqui, certainly putting this policy order forward is from the best intention from the I will not support it because I believe the compromise that was fashioned last year, and it is a compromise, is best for the whole city.

I have a few people. I have Councilor Zerbino-Wheeler, Councilor McGovern, Vice Mayor Azeem, Councilor Zusy.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. I'll try to be brief. I will be supporting the policy order before us tonight. I think a lot about how, not just in this, but in every decision the city makes, there are rarely changes that make every single person happy. We reached the current design after painstaking work by city staff, hours and hours of community meetings, thousands of dollars of work and labor to get to the current one-way design. And I actually agree with Councilor Flaherty that we shouldn't relitigate that process. That's why I don't think the council should have tried to overturn all the work that went into that process on a narrow 5-4 vote last term. So much of the frustration about city streets comes from construction and change. I think about River Street. Right now, where I've heard from countless residents via email, in person, text, expressing frustration. It's not about the change in the design. It's about just the construction and the fact of having to navigate that and deal with that.

or about Hampshire Street when we redid that street and put in protected bike lanes. There was a lot of frustration and confusion and upset about the change. What those things both have in common is that the frustration is about the design change. It's not about the new pattern. It is about ripping up the streets, putting in a new thing, Forcing people to deal with that construction, forcing people to deal with a new pattern of traffic. Finished Hampshire Street now. It's not that the impacts of that have gone away. It's not that every single person loves Hampshire Street. The reason we don't hear people up in arms about Hampshire Street all the time is that folks have gotten used to it. Folks have adapted to the new pattern. Folks have adapted and gotten used to the new pattern of Garden Street. That doesn't mean it's happy for every single person, but ripping it up, spending another quarter of a million dollars Forcing people to deal with more construction, putting more city staff on the streets isn't going to solve the issues here.

There's just things that not everyone agrees on a single piece of it, but it is the best design and we have to accept that. Transportation staff have said all along that the current design of Garden Street is the safest for everyone. It's the safest for pedestrians, it's the safest for cyclists, it's the safest for drivers. We've heard that over and over again from residents tonight, including folks who've lived on the street for decades, How dangerous it was previously and how they feel safer with the current design. In addition to being the safest street, it also saves the most amount of parking. This is a case where the people wanting to preserve parking and the people wanting the safest street are in agreement that the current design does both of those things. And that's why we have seen such a diversity of residents in terms of age, in terms of family status, come out tonight and say that they are in favor of the current design, which we don't always see in street changes. This broad swath of Cambridge agreeing that the current design is best. and also save the city a significant amount of money at a time when the budget is tight.

We have a choice tonight to spend a quarter of a million dollars ripping up the street and putting a bunch of new construction or we can say, our budget is really tight, this is the safest design, this is the one that so many residents agree with, we can keep it the way it is. So rather than ripping up the street and spending another $250,000, let's pass this policy order tonight to respect the community process and work of city staff that led to the current design. I yield back.

Council Member Govern, and then the Vice Mayor.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Through you, just a couple questions and then comment. To Ms. McKenna, we We had passed a policy order. I mean, I think it was in that policy order that reverted to go back to two-way about traffic calming and speed calming on the side streets, which I guess, did that not happen because it was going to be tied into the same project of going back to two-way? because I do think I continue to support that we should be trying to slow traffic down on those side streets regardless of where we end up.

Why didn't we go forward with that and is the plan to still go forward with that regardless of how this particular vote on Garden Street comes out?

Through you, Madam Mayor. Yes, we have speed humps for Raymond Street in particular on our list for this summer. We just started the pilot of the speed hump program last summer and it didn't make it onto that first cut of locations, but we are planning to do at least two speed humps along Raymond Street. as well as some other interventions like speed feedback signs. and some daylighting as well. And I think that as other side street locations are identified, I think Raymond is the one that we have heard most about so far, but we can certainly look at other locations as well.

Thank you. And through you, Madam Mayor. you know I mean there's again there's pluses and minuses to all of this right so if we're going to put speed calming and trying to slow people down and that means you might see some more traffic on on your street right so I mean I'd rather A little plug on if you're putting up speed limit signs I really love those signs that are the digital Thank you very much. I'd like more of those around the city, but certainly to consider those in this instance.

I don't doubt, nobody doubts that there's been an increase in car usage on the side streets. But do we have any sense of like, I don't even know if we have this information or how you would get it, but is it out of line with what we kind of see on a lot of streets in Cambridge? I mean, obviously if you go If you're used to 100 cars coming down your street and then you have 200 cars coming down your street, you can look at that and say that's 100% increase. But 200 cars coming down a cut-through street is really not a lot of cars. Do we know, is it really, it's an increase, but is it an increase that has made that street kind of out of whack with what we would expect?

Through you, Madam Mayor. First, we are looking at those electronic speed feedback signs that you mentioned. So what I would say is when we did this analysis before the prior vote, what we had found is that while we did see increase in volumes on some side streets, those streets were still in keeping with what we would expect on similar streets around the city. So it seemed like, you know, clearly when you make a big change like the one-way configuration those cars are going somewhere but it did seem like it was spread out and that it wasn't having disproportionate impacts than we would expect. I think the other thing I would add is that You know, the timing of this project after COVID when people's travel patterns changed a lot, I think that also it becomes very difficult to to kind of pull apart what is causing impacts on any given street.

It's not 100% clear that something can be linked directly to Garden Street or maybe It's because people who used to take the bus or the train, now they drive because they're only going into the office two days, so they can afford to pay for parking and things like that. It's challenging to find a complete correlation. Yes, you make a change here, and this impacts X, Y, and Z beyond kind of the most kind of the ones where it's very clear and where the nexus is very clear. And for those, it did seem like those streets were still at appropriate levels compared to other similar streets across the city.

Okay, thank you. So, Madam Mayor, I appreciate your comments at the beginning. I think this is challenging because... I would sort of disagree with there's overwhelming support in the neighborhood to go back to two-way. We certainly heard from a lot of people in the neighborhood tonight, not just people on Garden Street who supported one-way. And that's what kind of makes it difficult, right? Is that this is, you know, there are a lot of people in that neighborhood who like it the way it is. And there are a lot of people who don't. And neither one of those opinions should be discounted or criticized or blamed or, you know. And there's valid points. And so it is complicated, right? Because it is split.

In terms of revisiting the vote, I think that this is kind of what happens in politics. I'm certainly hoping that... I speak for myself, but I think I speak for many of us, that I certainly hope that if the Democrats take back the House and the Senate and the White House eventually, that they are going to revisit a hell of a lot of Thank you very much. But this is not a court. It's a legislative body. People run on different issues. This was certainly a big issue in the last election, and the votes have shifted.

you know we could also argue that this council was supportive of the city's plan to go to one way and then votes shifted on the council and then Thank you very much. The folks who wanted to go back to two-way had the five. And so they weren't concerned about revisiting it at that point. They had the votes. So I think that's... That's kind of what happens in some situations. So I've always supported it being one way. I supported it when the city recommended it.

Thank you. I think that we need to move more quickly on dealing with some of the traffic and speeding issues on the side streets. I do understand people's frustration with that. And again, regardless of how this vote turns out, we need to do that and we need to do that sooner rather than later. But I will be voting yes on the policy order. Thank you.

Voicemail, Azeem

Thank you, Madam Mayor. Well, I had an exciting announcement. I think I'm going to say that we should keep Cardin Street two ways, and Councilor Flaherty is going to say he's the biggest fan of the multifamily housing ordinance, and we're not going to change anything from last term. On a more serious note, I think that for me, it's at least about, I think that it doesn't really matter to me which policy order passed last term or this term, but actually what's the effect on the ground. I think that, honestly, two ways. There's a case to be made for it that's very strong, right? People need to get around town. The Harvard shuttle sometimes used that. There's a pretty, you know, Interesting case about, you know, how you can make, you know, bike lane expansions on Huron Ave.

and I get it and I think that if we had done two ways the initial time or this had just been changed to two-way last year after the initial policy order I voted and the vote today was like actually you should do construction again and change it back to one way I wouldn't vote for that. And also the reality on the ground right now is that it is a one way. And I think that we talked about like, well, people support this or people support the alternative version. Thank you so much for joining us. I think that most people have just kind of gotten used to it being a one-way at this point. And unless we have a really compelling reason, we shouldn't change it. And I think that, you know, yes, there's more traffic on side streets. But we're also just really shifting traffic around and who gets to suffer from it. I'd rather invest money in something that will make a net improvement rather than shifting around the problem. and I think that matches my general philosophy too.

I think in some quarters I would be known as a colleague who pushes all these book changes and then on the other hand I would say I'm probably the counselor who introduces the least amount of policy orders in that I feel like if you're trying to really change something, you better have a pretty strong reason to do so. And I just don't see it for now. So I'll vote for this policy order as is. Yeah, thank you.

Zuzi, and then Councilor Simmons.

I feel as though we've been put in a really tough spot, not just the council but the residents. I don't understand when we passed this policy order last May that it wasn't implemented. It could have been implemented. I don't understand when neighbors walked with the transportation department through the neighborhood and talked about traffic calming measures last June. that like nothing has changed. That doesn't make any sense to me. And I don't understand why, and I know you're rolling out the bike lanes and the transportation department is busy, There were over 600, 700 people that signed the petition last year that wanted the road to stay two-way, right? Or to go back to two-way.

I don't understand why the Transportation Department didn't do traffic counts of impacted neighborhoods and review cell phone tracking to identify where the westbound Garden Street traffic was displaced to to verify what neighbors were saying to see if what they were saying was valid. I don't think the neighbors are just like making things up, that it's taking them another 12 to 15 minutes to get home, that there are more accidents in the neighborhood. that they feel less safe in their neighborhoods. I mean, I've seen some stats that say... Traffic on Raymond, Appleton, Shepard, Walker, Ridge, Buckingham. It's all up 25 to 30 percent on Appleton and Raymond. It's up 50 to 60 percent in the morning. This is apparently from city data.

In the evening on Raymond and Appleton, traffic is up 25 to 30 percent. Appleton, 45 to 50 percent. Ridge... In Buckingham, 35 to 40%. I don't think people are making that up. I've heard people that have been so concerned, they're hanging out on street corners trying to figure out where the traffic's going, and they say, A lot of it is commuters. It's people from Kendall, from Boston that are trying to get back out to Sherman and to Route 2 in the western suburbs. But Clearly, there are a lot of cars detouring through our residential neighborhoods that weren't there before. Garden Street became a one-way. So I just feel like we owe it to those hundreds of residents to at least do some traffic counts and

Look at the cell phone data and track where people are actually going. I don't feel like the city council should have to write a policy order Every time there's a problem, I mean, we have gotten hundreds of letters about this over the last year. I understand that a one-way Garden Street is calmer, and I can appreciate why cyclists and pedestrians and Garden Street residents especially would All prefer to keep it that way, especially not to lose their parking places. I appreciate that. And I don't think there is a perfect solution here. But I think that a two-way garden street with two bicycle lanes is probably the best solution. I would like to see more data, and I wish the Transportation Department would have at least evaluated neighbors' concerns.

And I think if we restore Garden Street to two-way. It'll be better for the fire department. They'll be able to better put out fires because they won't have to detour all over town. will remove the traffic impacts from the neighborhoods and I'm sorry for the parking loss. I recognize the challenge with deliveries. We have many, many competing priorities here. But I think, you know, usually I actually pay attention to data. I pay attention to studies. I appreciate that you did study, but what I understand is that the study didn't evaluate the The traffic on Garden Street or Concord or the roads, the neighborhood south of Huron and Concord Street. So I feel like

Thank you very much. I'm disregarding this study. Anyway, what I really wish is that the traffic department could do the data analysis that it should have done To see, you know, to do traffic counts, looking at the neighborhood south of Huron and Concord Street, you know, seeing whether what neighbors are saying is valid. and then looking at the cell phone data to better understand the traffic patterns. That's what I really wish would happen before we move things forward. But I don't know if that's going to happen.

So those are my ideas. I have an amendment that I can introduce relating to this, if there would be support. because I do think that decisions that we make should be based on data, but I guess I'm hoping that we've got the votes to just not pass this.

I'd love some feedback from colleagues. So, Councilor Zusy, you haven't sent that amendment. You haven't sent that amendment to the clerk.

The clerk wants to clarify. I haven't because I'm really hoping because... Mayor Siddiqui, we don't know how you're going to vote, so I will send in my amendment, but I would really love to hear from you how you're thinking about things. I'll share my amendment now with the clerk.

I'll go to Councillor Simmons and then I will share. Councillor Simmons.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll throw you to my colleague, Councillor Flaherty. First of all, I want to thank him for exercising his charter right only because it gave us an opportunity to reach out to a larger audience of individuals who may not have been aware that Thank you, Councilor Flaherty. Through you, Madam Chair, to Councilor Flaherty, I believe, and please correct me if I'm wrong, are you planning or have you planned to have a meeting on Garden Street?

I'm happy to have a meeting. Councilor Flaherty? I'm happy to have a meeting on Guidance Tree. Yes, I am. Councilor Simmons?

Through you, Madam Chair, to Councilor Flaherty, is that date set for that meeting?

I haven't said it yet, but I'm all ears for you, Councilor Simmons.

Well, that's very nice to hear. I would recommend, again, this is part of why or what the committee, the committee It's not subcommittees, but the committees that take up particular issues are set up to flesh things out to have a more full, robust conversation. And I would have hoped or would hope that rather than passing or voting on this, we would refer this whole idea to the, is it Transportation Council, Flaherty? Yes, it is. And then whatever comes from that, whether it is, yes, we should go and reverse it or not. We've had an opportunity to have more of a conversation about those impacts. So I don't know. I mean, that would be my motion is to send it to committee to talk about it first rather than vote to reverse it.

We're voting to reverse a vote that we took last term. I don't think we have any staff there, but I don't think the council ever voted to make it a singular way. I think it was something that The now called the Transportation Department brought forward, did it, had a community process, did it, and then that's where the angst began. So that vote that we took in the 25... 24, 25. Thank you for saying this is I think it really does something to and individuals, the voters, belief and trust in us.

If we vote on something and then the turn of the election cycle, we now vote to reverse it because If I was sitting back listening to this, I said, well, you know, the Constitutional Department Drags Its Feet or does something, we could bring this up in the 28-29 year. I'm not going to vote to support this. I was on the prevailing side last term to take it back to what it was. Thank you so much for joining us. and what it votes to say that we'll do. I hope that the previous vote prevails and that

If it's about getting used to it, the people that will get used to it going back to a two-way thoroughfare, I think it's the fair and just thing to do. I will yield the floor.

So, Councilor Simmons, you've moved to send this to committee?

I'm moving to send it to committee. Maybe lay on table and move to the committee. It's, you know, seeing that transportation hasn't done anything. And thank you, Councilor Zusy, for reminding us because it should have been done and it wasn't. Maybe this is take this opportunity, take a little additional time. Lay it on the table. Let Councilor Clarity have his meeting. It doesn't mean that the initiative, the policy initiative that's before us doesn't come back or doesn't get voted, just as we had. It took time to build it up. So that's my movement to see if it passes.

So, Councilor Simmons, laying on the table is not a debatable motion, so we'd have to proceed to that vote.

So then let's proceed with what happens and go from there.

So to my city council colleagues, Councilor Simmons has moved to lay the policy order on the table which means that if that passes then that stays on the table and it would take five votes to take it off the table at a future meeting. If that fails, we can continue discussion and the body can vote the policy order up or down as an option or any other motion that comes forward. So to the clerk, we have to go to the vote.

Councilor Al-Zubi? No. No. Vice Mayor Azeem? No. No. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? No. No, Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Yes. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. No. No, Councilor Zusy.

No. Wait, wait, wait. No, I want to lay it on the table. I want to lay it on the table.

So that's a yes?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

No.

No. You have four members. I'm sorry. You have five members recorded in the negative, four in the affirmative.

The vote to lay on the table fails. So Councilor Simmons, have you yielded the floor?

I move to refer to transportation.

Second. So Councilor Simmons is moving to refer This policy order to transportation for further discussion. We can have discussion on that. I will be voting no. I think we should dispose of this tonight. So I can hear from others before we go on voting to move this to transportation. Vice Mayor Azeem.

Just a point for technical details. I wanted to just ask. Staff of when they need an answer on this buy if the goal would be to have construction this summer?

Commissioner?

Through you, Madam Mayor. We definitely need to start moving quickly if we want to do anything there this summer and there's been a lot of utility work there so it's not in great shape so it's not great to postpone doing anything.

Thank you very much. helpful for people to understand that if we did forward this to committee and it took us a couple weeks to organize a meeting and then comes back to the city council and then we have to vote on it it probably means that it's not construction just time-wise cannot happen this year

Other opinions on getting this to the Transportation Committee? Yes, Councilor Zusy.

I would support that if the... I feel like it will only be a productive conversation if the Transportation Department does some analysis of if they do traffic counts and if they do some analysis of cell phone data. In advance, I mean, we need new data. Otherwise, we're just battling over the same thing again and again and again without additional data. I would think that, and I guess this is a question for the Transportation Department. Wouldn't traffic count information and cell phone data help you perhaps to come up with other ideas in addition to traffic calming to improve the situation?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui, I mean, I think we're committed to, we are committed to doing continued traffic calming regardless. And so I think in recognition of some of the needs that have been expressed in the neighborhoods, we are in the current plan I'm going to be putting out some initiatives. We're happy to discuss more of that. I think, Councilor Zusy, this is a bit similar to the conversation on housing. I would just say listening to this discussion, it's not clear to me that The council would be ready to commit to say if traffic on X street was found to have gone up by 20% versus 30% versus 40%, I think there's a lot of different reasons that people are preferring one option to the other. And I would also recognize this is a healthy debate and that it's a close call and that

People on both sides have a lot of, there's different ways of looking at this that are landing people in different places. So I think my challenge is I don't know that the data will change people's opinions. or their votes. And so I'm a little hesitant for us to say we should gather this data, get together and expect that people are going to see the issue differently.

Zusy? Yeah, through you, Madam Mayor. So, but if the cell phone data confirms what we've heard from neighbors, That people are cutting through the neighborhood as they try to get to Sherman Street and off to Route 2 to the western suburbs. That actually would be really useful data, right? Because then we know we have all these people. We want these workers actually to be working at Kendall Square, right? At Kendall Square is one of our economic... It is our economic center. We want workers to be able to get to work and to go home after a long day at work. So if the cell phone data demonstrated that, yeah, this is mostly commuters that are cutting through the neighborhood as they're trying to go west. Wouldn't that be important information to understand?

Through you, Mayor Siddiqui. I don't think it would change the decision because even if we found that, for instance, some of the traffic on surrounding streets was potentially higher by 20 or 30 percent, I think also it would remain true that that traffic may be lower by 20 or 30 percent than many other streets across the city. And so I just think this isn't to say that one view is right and another view isn't right. I think there's a lot of different ways that we can look at trade-offs. And I think this is one of the particularly hard challenges that we face in In this chamber and as a city and a community where I don't know that unless we were to agree on very clear thresholds that we are then making decisions on, The data is not going to change how people are saying we think this is a good idea or not a good idea.

Zuzi. There's been a lot of back and forth, so I would love to share my opinion.

I'm about done. I just wanted to say, I just don't think We've all received the photographs of backups on Conquered, backups on Raymond. I just think those things are true. And so I just feel like our job or the Transportation Committee Department's job as traffic planners is like to come up with some safety valves. How can we relieve some of the pressure? That's what I'm really eager. I don't think these neighbors are just complaining for no reason. I think their lives are being impacted, and clearly there are more accidents, too. So I'll yield now. But I think what neighbors are saying is, So I think to ignore them completely like Isn't solving the problem.

We need to help to make the problem less problematic, right? Isn't that what transportation planners do? I think it is. Thank you. I yield.

It's 10.14, so I want to keep this as brief as I can. I want to thank everyone. All sides of the issue who've emailed and spoken to me about their opinion whether that was for storing it to two-way or to keep it one-way. It has been a bit of back and forth for me. And I think everything my colleagues have said over the last few weeks have taken into account. I voted to keep Garden Street one way last year and while I don't think it's best practice to bring forward a policy order every time there's Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. City Staff. I agree with Councilor Al-Zubi who thoroughly laid out that this does not mean there are not still real concerns and as most of you have laid out about many of the surrounding streets. I appreciate that this policy order attempts to address that. I'm also glad that Councilman McGovern brought up the traffic calming measures after we I'm glad Commissioner McKenna has spoken to those plans and I do want Thank you for joining us.

As we all mentioned in the policy order, I want to recognize there have been residents who did that walking audit. Jeff, you were there. There were no next steps, really, on that. Thank you for joining us. It kind of highlights that there's a lot of underlying issues of users of the streets that we need to pay attention to. And so I think as you're responding to this, really have that audit in mind Again, there's many other streets that are mentioned in this and residents have brought up and I do think it's really important that we Thank you for joining us.

Getting us, the council, a response to this about what exactly the department will be doing it on that timeline and responding to... I'll yield. I think everyone has said, gone around maybe once or twice, so I'll go back to Councilor Flaherty and then I think we should move to the vote. Councilor Flaherty?

Thank you. Just if I could, and thank you for recognizing me, Madam Mayor, so I could... I know it's not the final word, but it's one of the final words. I'll be voting no with my neighbors. And I know from knocking on doors and dropping flies that it's 75.2% of the people that I spoke to wanted this to be returned to a two-way street. And that's based upon their lived experiences. Similar to my lived experiences. As many of you know, I live in the corner here on Fresh Pond Parkway. I'd like to see Fresh Pond Parkway a one-way street. I would, so I could ride my bike on. I could walk with my child there. But the impact on the street network would be catastrophic. Now, Garden Street is an arterial street. There's collector streets, there's local streets. The doors that I knocked on were local streets. All of the streets that I mentioned.

And those people suffer the cut through traffic. Safety is diminished. Thank you for joining us. and hopefully it never will. But the true issue here is not the nuisance, the traffic, the congestion. It's the safety concerns of that neighborhood. There are a lot of kids around there. There are families around there. There is excessive speeding on cut-through traffic. I see it every single day when I back out of my driveway and I drive down here on Ave and it takes me 20 minutes to get from one end of Huron Ave to St. Peter's to coach CYO basketball and people are cutting through and across Huron Ave. It's dangerous.

And, you know, there's evidence and statistics and about flow and... and Traffic Counts. I'm very familiar with all of it. I've read all the reports. I look at all of it. But there's nothing that I've read that has convinced me that one lane Garden Street traffic has improved the safety of that neighborhood it may have improved on Garden Street Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I don't think we'll do what returning Garden Street to two-way traffic with bilateral separated bike lanes

will do. This is a artery in the city of Cambridge. It's not a collector street. It's not a local street. It has a severe and significant impact to be converted to a one-lane Thank you for joining us. It's been a two-way street. And then it was converted to one lane. And public opposition caused this body, which I was not a member of it, to vote to return it to two-lane traffic. and it appears today that we're going to keep it as one-lane traffic. I think that's a mistake and I hope to God that Nobody suffers a catastrophic injury as a result of this, and I'll yield, but I'll be voting no. Thank you.

So it's 10-22. I would suggest that we move forward with the vote. Yes, Councilor McGovern.

Thank you, Madam Mayor. And I'll make it brief. I could say a lot of some of the things that have been said, but I really don't want To hear some colleagues say that, to suggest that if we don't support going back to two lanes, that we're not listening to people or that we're not taking the concerns of people on the side streets seriously, we are taking those seriously. Really appreciate your leadership in setting that tone that we should be setting an example and not interfighting over this. This is a hard decision. Keep it one way.

Thank you very much. that this is a slam dunk in either way. This is why it's hard. So I'm going to yield there. I could say more and I would agree. We'll call the question.

So, Councilor McGovern has called the question. First, we have to do a vote on calling the question, and then we have to proceed to the vote.

One second. Yes, Councilor Al-Zubi? I had sent my amendment earlier. I sent it both to the clerk and to the assistant, to the council.

So, Councilor Zusy, I hadn't heard that you had moved the amendment, so you don't have it, City Clerk?

Madam Mayor, I have the amendment. It wasn't called, so if we're calling it, I can put it up on screen.

McGovern will yield.

We'll go to your amendment, Councilor Zusy. Thank you very much. I'm sorry. I didn't realize I had to say so because I had mentioned it earlier. But the amendment is to do what I... had asked. So it's an order that fits between the two orders. There are a bunch of orders. But it's that the city manager direct the city's transportation department to do traffic and accident counts and gather and analyze cell phone data on Garden Street and in the greater Garden Street neighborhoods. including side streets south of Huron and Concord Avenue to better ascertain broader transportation patterns and impacts of a one-way garden street to inform better transportation planning and be it further. So what this The amendment would do is that it would actually provide us with the data that actually would help us, it would either confirm or

or say what we've been hearing isn't true, but it would help. I feel like there are, in Councilor Al-Zubi's order, The goal is to encourage quick fix things, traffic calming in the neighborhood. So that is great. I'm glad the city is going to do this. But this would also order the Transportation Department to do an analysis of what all these people are complaining about. And then the last ordered would read, that the City Manager be and hereby is requested to provide the City Council with a written update and analysis by October 26 with recommendations for appropriate next steps prior to reconfiguring Garden Street once again.

So this would, instead of saying we're never gonna go back to two-way, what this would allow for is for it would direct the Transportation Department to gather the data that we actually need to understand what's going on to come up with real solutions to make traffic flow better and to make everyone safer in the neighborhoods. So it would do, Councilor Al-Zubi, so it would delay restoring Garden Street to two-way, but what it would require is some study and analysis of traffic patterns that would help the Transportation Department to better improve existing conditions, which are bad. So I feel like it would build on Councilor Al-Zubi's order

and it would actually give us with the data that would help the Transportation Department to solve the problem.

Madam Mayor.

Simino-Wheeler.

Thanks. Just briefly, I would just say this could be a separate policy order. The whole point of the policy order tonight is to not do any additional changes. We don't make any changes. We can do more analysis on Garden Street. This could be a separate policy order at the next council meeting. I would vote no on the amendment past the original policy order, and then we can have more conversations if we want.

Councilor Al-Zubi?

I would like to call the question on the amendment, if that's possible.

Yes. So, reminder, Robert Rules 101. Calling the question is non-debatable. So we have to go proceed to that vote, and then we can go from there. So Councilor Al-Zubi's motion is to call the question.

Al-Zubi. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Council of Flaherty. Oh, yes. On the amendments. Yes.

We're calling the question. Yes, on the amendment.

Voting to vote on the amendment.

to vote on the amendment. To go directly to vote but without discussion.

Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons. Simmons, absent. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

We now go directly to voting on Councilor Zusy's amendment. Madam Chair? We have to move to the vote, Councilor Simmons.

Madam Chair, I was saying yes.

Okay, great. We recorded you. You recorded it as yes.

I thought you said absent.

Okay. Clerk? We have to vote on the amendment.

Councilor Al-Zubi?

No.

No. Vice Mayor Azeem? No. No. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. McGovern, Nolan, Simmons, Sobrinho-Wheeler, Zusy, Siddiqui,

No.

No. And you have four members recorded in the affirmative, five recorded in the negative.

The amendments do not pass. We do have to dispose of a prior motion that was from Councilor Simmons unless she withdraws it, which was referring this to the Transportation Committee.

Councilor Simmons?

I can't hear you, can you speak? You'd like to proceed to the vote? Yes, okay. Discussion? Councilor Nolan?

Are we on the overall or on the...

The referral.

I'll just be short. I do think it's bad policy and also I think there's a lot of trust that has been really... Shredded for me tonight on just the way we're approaching this and just to remind folks and I appreciate the staff who has been very clear they prefer one thing but the idea that one is safer than the other is not Thank you. Thank you. were being accused of not wanting something safe. And I know there's pros and cons, but I do think it's also important that we're able to trust the process, which right now I'm not feeling very good about.

I don't see anyone else on referral, so we can go ahead and go to the vote.

Councilor Al-Zubi? No. No. Vice Mayor Ziem? No. No. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? No. No. Councilor Nolan? No, Councilor Simmons.

Yes.

Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. No. No, Councilor Zusy.

Wait, I'm sorry. I'm voting on the policy order.

No, this is referring to the Transportation Committee.

Oh, my. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui.

No.

No, and you have three members recorded in the affirmative and six members recorded in the negative.

So we've disposed of all and any motions that were before us. We've heard from everyone who's wanted to speak. We can go ahead on voting on the policy order.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes.

No. No. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan.

No.

No. Councilor Simmons.

No.

No. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy.

No.

No, Councilor, I'm sorry, Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have five members recorded in the affirmative and four recorded in the negative.

Madam Mayor.

Yes, Councilor McGovern.

Move suspension of the rules to move reconsideration, hoping the same will not prevail.

McGovern has moved suspension, so there will be two votes, first on the suspension and then on the reconsideration.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Yes. Councilor Flaherty?

Point of order. Is it a motion for reconsideration only by an aggrieved party?

No.

No, here you can, after it passes. If it were to pass, then someone could move for reconsideration. But if it's after the vote, anyone can make that motion. You have to be in the majority.

You have to be in the majority, the prevailing majority, in order to move for reconsideration.

Yes, suspension and then reconsideration. So it's to me on suspension? This is on suspension, yeah.

No. No. Flaherty is no. Councilor McGovern?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons?

No.

I'm sorry, was that a no, Councilor?

Yes.

It's a no. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy?

No.

No. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have six members recorded in the affirmative and three recorded in the negative.

So we're now on in suspension and now we have to vote on the reconsideration.

Madam Mayor, just to clarify for new folks what that means, right? So if you want the option for someone to file reconsideration, you would vote yes. If you want the case to be closed tonight, you would vote no.

Does that make sense?

Sure.

So we'll go ahead and do that.

Councilor Al-Zubi? No. No. Vice Mayor Azeem? No. No. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? No. No. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? No. No. Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

No.

No, and you have four members recorded in the affirmative and five recorded in the negative.

So we've moved on from the Charter Right. We have to go to Unfinished Business. We'll go to Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Thanks, Madam Mayor. This is to ordain the updates to the welcoming city ordinance. We passed this to a second reading at our last council meeting. They were eligible to be ordained on April 20th, so we can ordain them tonight. I will make the motion to ordain.

Sobrinho-Wheeler moves to ordain. We'll go ahead and do a roll call.

Councilor Al Zubi. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons. Simmons. Yes.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes. And you have nine members recorded in the affirmative.

We have ordained the amendments to the Welcoming City, Welcoming Community Ordinance. There are no applications and petitions. There are 397 communications. Simmons makes a motion to place all the communications on file. We'll do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Absent. Councilor Flaherty.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor McGovern. Yes, Councilor Nolan. Yes, Councilor Simmons. Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy.

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The communications are placed on file. We're on to the consent resolutions. There are two on a motion by Councillor McGovern to adopt the resolutions, making them unanimous upon adoption. We'll do a roll call.

Al-Zubi, yes, yes, Vice Mayor Azeem, absent, Councilor Flaherty, yes, yes, Councilor McGovern, yes, Councilor Nolan, yes, Councilor Simmons, Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler. Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy.

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui. Yes. Yes, and you have eight members recording the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The resolutions are adopted. There are two committee reports. I don't see anyone who would like to pull them, so we'll go ahead on a motion by Councilor Zusy to accept these reports and place them on file, do a roll call. Actually, we do have to pull. We haven't gotten to committee reports. We have gotten to committee reports. We're at committee reports. So we'll pull. We'll adopt number one and do a roll call, and then I'll pull number two.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Absent. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Yes. Yes. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons?

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

Committee report number one is adopted. We have committee report number two, which was about a public hearing on Monday, March 30th, to review the community benefits ordinance and discuss potential updates. including allowing the allocation of funding to community organizations for capital projects. The ordinance committee voted favorably to forward the proposed amendments to the community benefits ordinance to the full city council with the favorable recommendations. So we have to adopt these amendments and pass them to a second reading. So we'll go ahead and do a roll call.

On accepting the report and placing on file first, Madam.

Yeah, we can do the, no, we have to, let's do the amendments and pass, and then we can do the report.

Okay, on the amendments, Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Yes, Vice Mayor Azeem? Absent. Flaherty, yes, Councilor McGovern, absent, Councilor Nolan, yes, Councilor Simmons, yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler, yes, Yes, Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes, Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes, and you have seven members recording the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

We adopted the amendments and passed them to a second reading and now we'll do a roll call on accepting the committee report number two and placing it on file.

Councilor Al-Zubi? Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem? Absent. Councilor Flaherty? Yes. Yes. Councilor McGovern? Absent. Councilor Nolan. Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler.

Yes.

Yes. Councilor Zusy. Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui.

Yes.

Yes. And you have seven members recorded in the affirmative and two recorded as absent.

Committee report number two is accepted and placed on file. We're going to communications and reports from other city officers. We'll go ahead and do a roll call on placing the one communication report on file.

Al-Zubi, yes, yes, Vice Mayor Azeem, yes, Councilor Flaherty, yes, yes, Councilor McGovern, absent, Councilor Nolan, yes, Councilor Simmons, yes, Yes, Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes, Councilor Zusy?

Yes.

Yes, Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes, and you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

The communication report from other city officers is placed on file. Are there any late resolutions?

There are none.

There's no late policy orders. There are none. We do have a number of committee hearings this week. We have one in transportation tomorrow. Councilor Flaherty?

Yes, I'll be hosting with Vice Mayor Burham Azeem, a Transportation Committee meeting about the proposed increase in the parking permit. So... If you'd like to learn more about it, please zoom in, show up. Same bat channel. And that's at 3? 3 p.m. Same back channel.

And we also have another hearing on Thursday. Yes. Or was it Wednesday? No, we have one in, I think we have public safety on ShotSpotter. and then on Thursday we have one or is it Wednesday on Thursday the pilot on pilots so right Yeah, yes, Councilor Al-Zubi?

I also want to add that there's going to be a May 1st event on secession planning right here, I believe, in Sullivan Chamber as well.

And that's at 9.30?

I believe it's at 9. 9? 9 a.m., yeah.

9 a.m., okay. For small businesses, yeah. Any other announcements on a motion by Councilor Zusy to adjourn? We'll go ahead and do a roll call.

Councilor Al-Zubi. Yes. Vice Mayor Azeem. Yes. Yes. Councilor Flaherty. Yes.

Yes.

Councilor McGovern? Absent. Councilor Nolan? Yes. Yes. Councilor Simmons? Yes. Councilor Sobrinho-Wheeler? Yes. Yes. Councilor Zusy? Yes. Yes. Mayor Siddiqui?

Yes.

Yes. And you have eight members recorded in the affirmative and one recorded as absent.

We are adjourned.